Fight Song
by gizzymoon
Summary: Since the wait will be a long one for next season I decided to fill the void with my idea for Season 4. The Mikaelson's awaken and set out to rescue their brother and take back their city. This will largely be a Haylijah
1. Chapter 1

"Mom," the voice from the top of the stairs was quiet, yet concerned.

Hayley lifted her face towards the sound and cursed under her breath. She hadn't meant to be found down here again. She must have fallen asleep.

"I'm here, Sweetie. I'll be right up. I was just-"

"Sleeping in Uncle Elijah's coffin again ?" the young girl answered for her as she stepped to the middle of the stairs where she could catch her mother red-handed.

Hayley got up, closed the coffin lid and shook her head in defeat. "You know, I see how this looks. And I completely understand where all this concern is coming from," Hayley started, sardonically, hoping to avoid an argument. "But I've had a really bad day, again and I've resisted this for a really long time. I haven't been down here since we lost Grant, in fact."

"Ten years, Mom. It's been ten years." Hope answered. "I'm not even going to go into how terribly gross this is, and, wow, what kind of life have I led where that isn't the main thing wrong with this. But this has to stop, Mom. You can't keep doing this. I understand how you felt about him-."

Hayley started for the stairs without looking up at her daughter. Instead she brushed past her. "If that were true, then you wouldn't be harassing me about this."

Hope followed along after her mother, carefully locking the basement door behind her. "Don't do that. I'm harassing you because I care about you. This isn't healthy, and I'm not talking about the fact that you were sleeping next to a corpse. It was that you were sleeping next to that corpse. We've been searching for a way to save them for ten years now. Eventually there has to come a point where we realize it just can't be done."

Hayley spun on her so fast it caused Hope to take a step back.

"Why can't I make either of you understand. There will never be a point where we say that. We have an eternity and we are going to find a way to save them all."

Hope stared down at her hands for a minute, far more going on in her head than in a normal twelve year old's head. Hayley went to her and wrapped her arms around her tiny frame. "We can't stop, Sweetheart. We just can't. We will find a way to save your Uncles and your father. The spell Freya is working on is going to work. I know it is. As soon as Rebecca gets back here with the blood from the last werewolf pack, we are going to wake them up. And then we'll march into the middle of New Orleans and get your father back."

"I hope you're right. I really do. But what I need you to have is some realistic expectations," she answered into her mother's chest.

"I know this might not work. If it doesn't, we'll try something else. Just don't ever ask me to stop trying."

"That's exactly what I'm asking you to do, Mom." Hope told her as she stepped out of her embrace and moved down the long hall to the living room.

"How can you ask that?" Hayley demanded as she stormed after her.

Hope plopped herself down in the middle of their worn, brown leather love seat. "I'm asking because I believe that this might be our last chance. It's the only shot we have."

"There is always something else. If it could be done, then it can be undone." She argued as she began to pace across the beige carpet.

"God, I swear, those were probably my first words." Hope grunted as she flopped back against the cushions.

"Your first word was wolf, actually. Followed closely by, Dada." Hayley corrected her.

"Mom, if Aunt Rebecca can't find the last surviving member of this pack, we have no more options. Marcel was smart when he hunted them down like he did. He went after the least populated, weakest pack and eradicate them, making it impossible to make a cure for his bite. If Vincent hadn't locked him away, he might have succeed. And I'm not totally convinced about this supposed orphan."

Hayley went to the chair that matched the loveseat and folded herself into it while sweeping a long strand of brown hair behind her ear. "You know that's basically my story, right? So it isn't like things like this don't happen, they do. I'm proof. Our luck is bound to change."

She reached out and touched the charm bracelet on Hope's wrist. It was a familiar habit of hers. Before Freya had used the spell that blocked Hope's magic, the bracelet was all she had to ensure her daughter's safety. Hope had no idea how powerful she was and Hayley had no intention of her finding out before she was ready.

She remembered the day she'd woken up to find Rebecca in her living room, standing looking mystified over a four year old Hope. The protective charm had slipped off during the night and Hope had taken the opportunity to lift the curse from her aunt. She was three at the time. Haley and Rebecca had made a decision that day to hide Hope's power from her. It was in the best interest of everyone. Marcel had to know that Elijah wasn't dead. Those of his sire line were still in New Orleans. It was only a matter of time before he came looking for Hope.

After that, Freya had been an easy matter. Rebecca tracked down a witch she knew to make an antidote for her and she soon joined them in their fight. The others hadn't been so easy.

And now they were so close, just one remaining wolf pack to locate and they could make the cure that would heal Marcel's bite on Elijah and Kol. Then with the strength of their numbers, all together again, they could march into New Orleans and demand Klaus' return.

Marcel was smart, too smart apparently for Vincent's taste and now rumors swirled that he had the super vampire squirreled away somewhere through some magical means of Vincent's conjuring.

But it was still too early to be thinking about what to do about Vincent. They were still stuck in a ridiculous limbo, waiting for Rebecca to return with blood from a teenage werewolf who might just be there last remaining hope.

It seemed that Hope might be right. They had tried and failed so many times in their attempts to revive the brothers. They knew their first mission was obtaining blood from the original seven wolf packs. Some had been easy to come by. The North Atlantic pack was large and still fairly prosperous. The Crescent Wolves, while not large, were loyal. The others had proven a bit trickier. And the one they were having the most trouble with was a pack of wolves that Marcel had decided to exterminate in order to maintain the advantage of his bite.

By the time Rebecca had awaken, Hayley had a sample of venom from five of the seven bloodlines. They had spent eight years tracking down the last of the Valeria wolves. And apparently their last hope was a seventeen year old orphan who had finally triggered her wolf curse.

Hayley let go of the charm and instead took hold of the pendant at her throat. It was her link. A gift Freya had made for her. With the pendant Hayley was able to spend her sleeping moments with the man she loved. Five years of nights cut off too quickly by the coming of the morning and in reality not spent together at all.

She didn't know how to explain it to her daughter, but sometimes just being able to be with him wasn't enough. Sometimes she needed to feel him as well. Of course it was morbid and morose and if Elijah knew what she was doing he would insist she stop. But she didn't care. After ten years of running and hiding and searching and trying and failing, Haley decided she would do whatever it took to get her through the night. And sometimes that meant sneaking off into the basement, opening the lid of Elijah's coffin and climbing in beside him. In those nights, she needed to feel his strength. She needed to feed off of his composure and fortitude. In those nights, when she was at her lowest point, she needed him to help her keep standing, keep fighting. And she would swear she could still smell his cologne of his suit, fresh as the day she placed him in the coffin, kissed him and closed the lid.

"Am I interrupting a moment?" Freya asked as she entered the room from her bedroom. "I heard voices. I hoped maybe Rebecca was back."

"No, but Mom was sleeping downstairs again," Hope quickly volunteered.

Hayley flashed her a venomous look. " You are such a cheeky little brat," she hissed under her breath.

"It's okay. I already knew. The basement door was ajar when I got up and I assumed. I had hoped giving you the pendant would end this morbid habit of yours."

"It did. Most of the time." Hayley answered. "Just sometimes I need..."

"To make sure he's really still there. I get that." Freya finished for her. "I'm going to bring him back to you. I swear it."

"I know." Hayley sighed.

"And as soon as we get my Uncles up and about, we are going to take back our home and find my father and everything will be right with the world again." Hope added, brightly. "Have we even thought about how we're going to make that happen? I mean what's the next step in this mission after the whole bite cure thing."

"You mean what are we going to do about Vincent and Marcel? I have no idea, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, we concentrate on what's in front of us. That's worked this long."

"I have homework because some of us are expected to be normal all day while filling up my evenings with talk of plans and revenge and coffins and werewolves, curses and cures. It's all very _Dark Shadows_. Like I live in an Anne Rice novel." Hope hopped up from the couch with the energy afforded to one her age and bounced off down the hall.

Freya waited until she heard her go up the stairs, her bedroom door shut, and the sound of music to begin before she leaned forward. "Maybe we should talk outside," she suggested.

"Outside is worse. She keeps her window open." Hayley told her. "Is there something going on that Hope shouldn't know about?"

"No, but it is possible that this spell might be beyond me. I mean, I'm working without Ancestral magic. I can only do so much and she is so strong." Freya explained.

"We'll use Hope if we have to, but for now, I want things to remain exactly the same. It's hard enough on her being a vampire. She hasn't triggered her wolf yet. She doesn't need to know about the witch part of her. Maybe let her get through puberty first."

Freya sat back and took a long look at the very young single mother in front of her. "You know you've done a really great job with her. Klaus will be so proud and so will Elijah. I can see both of them in her every day."

"I appreciate that. But it's been easy. She's such a great kid." Hayley waved off the praise.

"Have you heard from Rebecca today?"

"No, not since last night. I didn't tell Elijah about the kid. I didn't want to get his hopes up."

"I suppose one of you with your hopes up is more than enough." Freya answered.

"My hopes are up because we are going to win." Hayley stated as if it were a matter of course.

"Bloody well right, we will." Rebecca announced as she came stomping triumphantly down the hall. "We're the Mikaelson women. We don't know the word impossible."


	2. Chapter 2

She found him tonight exactly where she'd left him that afternoon when she napped so briefly with her head on his chest.

"I have news." She chirped as she came towards the swing where he was rocking gently and he opened his arms and welcomed her inside.

"What news could possibly make you this happy? I haven't see you smile in weeks." Elijah asked as he pulled her in and settled her back against his chest.

"We may have a sample of Valeria venom. Freya is doing some test to make sure it's real but Rebecca said she saw the girl when she got the venom and she looked like the Valeria wolves. Blond, blue-eyed and bubbly."

Elijah pulled her away from him and turned her so he could see her face. "You aren't joking? You mean we may well have the cure to this accursed bite soon?"

Hayley nodded vigorously. "Soon as in the next few days. There's just one catch."

"You're going to need Hope to do the spell." Kol added from across the small clearing in the garden.

"Yeah, we might need Hope for the spell. Freya isn't sure she's strong enough without the Ancestral magic."

"If you do that, Marcel will know exactly where to find her. You can't let that happen, not even to save us," Elijah said.

"Marcel hasn't been seen in New Orleans in a couple of months. Rumors have it that Vincent has him locked away somewhere." She informed them.

Kol shuffled his feet, but didn't look up.

Elijah shifted on the swing. "Seems to me that one monster is just as bad as the other."

"Not really." Hayley argued. "We can't kill Marcel. We know exactly how to kill a witch, even a powerful one."

"One as strong as Vincent seems to be?" Kol asked. "I mean if he bested Marcel, why couldn't he do the same to one of us?"

Hayley got to her feet. "What kind talk is this? So Vincent got the better of Marcel, from the way I've heard it, someone needed to. But Vincent only got the better of Marcel because he was just one person."

"We are a family." Elijah added in agreement.

"So if we need Hope for the spell to make the cure, we are going to have to move fast. We won't have much of a head start before one of them comes looking for her."

"I can assure you, Kol and I will be more than ready to take some action. These years trapped in this Purgatory have been dreadful." Hayley settled into the swing beside him and he immediately put his arms around her.

"I'm going to go find something else to do. This is getting sickening." Kol grumbled as he strolled off.

He wasn't gone long before Rebecca appeared on the steps of a fountain and they roamed away together leaving Hayley and Elijah alone.

"I have a clean suit picked out waiting for you as soon as you wake up." Hayley said they continued to gently sway. "Although I don't think you need one. The one you have on now still smells just like the day you-"

Elijah gave a chuckle and cleared his throat, "Fell asleep in it?" he offered. Then he glanced down at her quizzically. "How on Earth do you know what my suit smells like?"

"I went downstairs earlier just to check on both of you and make sure everything was alright." she answered as she tucked her hair behind her ear and looked away.

Elijah leaned even further away. "You're lying to me!" he announced with a note of glee in his tone as if he'd uncovered some mystery.

"I'm not lying to you. Why would I lie?"

"I don't know. But I know that you are."

"You do not." She replied and gave his chest a playful push.

He snatched her hand and held it his as he lowered his voice to the point he knew drove her crazy. "Oh, but I do. You see, the one thing these last five years have given me is an ample opportunity to get to know everything there is to know about you. I can see right through you now, Hayley Marshall. I've seen into your very soul. I've memorized every move you make. Recorded every word you've said. Relished in everything that makes you, you. I know you, My Dear. I can read you like a book. And I know that right now, you are lying to me."

His eyes held hers as his words slid over her like pure silk. His hand held hers in what would be for anyone else, a punishing grip. For Hayley it was perfect, strong and steely, steady and sure.

She moved closer to him, straddling him and sending the swing reeling in the possess. But the time he'd righted it, she was securing sitting on his lap with her arms around his neck.

"See, now I know you're lying. You're trying to change the subject." He told her as he settled her more securely by placing his arm around her back.

"Oh, come on, it was a stale subject and this one is much better." She said teasingly as she started to play with his tie. Even in an imaginary dream world, the suit was dark, expensive and perfect.

He slid his hand down until he was clutching her ass in the palm of his hand and inhaled deeply. "You might be right. This is a much better subject." He affirmed before his lips found hers.

Before she knew it, they were in there usual place. A clearing behind a hedge. He'd even managed to produce a blanket after her first visit.

She was flat on her back with him hovering at her side, looking down at her with such a weight it caused her to shift from the burden of it.

"I'm sorry," he apologized at seeing her discomfort. "It's just the thought of actually being able to touch you again is a little overwhelming. I'm so glad you never listened to me and moved on. I don't think I could have bared it. I've loved you since the moment I first saw you, but it seems as if fortune is always pulling us apart."

She squeezed his shoulder before running her hand along his square jaw. "You aren't going to lose me. You know that, right?"

He closed his eyes for a moment as if even the thought brought him physical pain. "How can you be so sure? What if this is the only place the Fates will allow us to be together?"

"I can be so sure because I refuse to let anything ever come between us again. No one and nothing is going to take you away from me again. I won't allow it. I think the last ten years have proven that. I don't care how long it takes or what I have to do, I will find a way for us to be together."

He leaned in and kissed her softly. "As will I," he whispered against her lips.

Just as he kissed her again, her vision began to flicker, and suddenly he became less solid under her hands. She grabbed hold of the lapels of his jacket, trying to fight against whatever was waking her up.

She always fought against it. She never won.

As she blinked her eyes open, light poured in from the hall through her opened bedroom door.

"Sorry to pull you away from your frolic, Luv. But have you any idea where your daughter might be?" Rebecca asked, as Hayley sat up and tried to focus.

"She's in her room, isn't she?" Hayley asked, jumping to her feet, fully awake at hearing that Hope might be in danger.

"Nope, Freya just woke me up to tell me she went in to check on her and she wasn't there." Rebecca explained. "She's trying to work some kind of spell to find her."

"She can't. Hope is magically cloaked."

"She isn't tracking her. She's tracking that girl she is always hanging out with." Rebecca explained.

Hayley nodded in approval as they made their way into the room in the house set aside for Freya's magic.

Freya was standing at a table chanting over a map. A small splattering of blood began to pool, then it began to move. Freya looked down, then back up in utter shock.

"This can't be right," she said as if it were a certainty.

"What can't be right? What is it? Where is Hope?"

"If she's with her friend, Tabitha, she's in New Orleans." Freya told them.

"What in Bloody Hell would she be doing in New Orleans?"

Hayley took the phone from her pocket and punched in several numbers quickly.

"Who are you calling? We don't have any friends in New Orleans anymore." Rebecca reminded her.

"I'm calling her." Hayley replied. She only paused a moment before Hope picked answered. "Are you okay? Have you been taken against your will?" Her voice was sharp and cutting.

"I'm fine, Mom. I'll be right home." Hope answered, quickly before hanging up.

Twenty minutes later, Hope came breezing threw the front door in a flash of vampire speed.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Hayley started the moment she stopped moving.

"I just-" Hope started but didn't get the chance to finished.

"Do you have any idea how scared I was? I thought someone had taken you."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left." Hope started again.

"You think maybe my eleven year old daughter shouldn't have taken off in the middle of the night to the one place in the world where all our enemies live?"

"I was just trying to help."

"Trying to help with what?" Freya asked, jumping into the conversation.

"I was looking around to see what was really going on there. And," her voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "I was looking for my father. I've been trying to find him."

Rebecca took a step back as if the child had burned her. Hayley looked completely horrified and Freya gasped out loud.

Hayley took a deep settling breath. "How long have you been sneaking off like this?" she asked, with as much calm as she could muster.

"I've been going there for a couple of weeks now." Hope admitted.

"Do you have any idea the kind of danger you've put yourself in? Aside from the fact that you are ELEVEN years old, there are people in New Orleans that want to see you dead. There are people there that would be happy to use you to get me to hand over Elijah and Kol's coffins. There are people there that want to see every last trace of Mikaelson blood wiped out of existence. Do you understand that?" Haley did her best to keep her voice as calm and level as possible while lending her words the weight of her fear for her daughter's safety.

"I was trying to help." Hope said again, this time with tears running down her cheeks. "I thought that if I could find my father, I could bring him here and we could take the dagger out and he could help us with Uncle Elijah and Uncle Kol. I've been reading these journals I found and-"

"What journals?" Hayley asked suddenly.

"Uncle Elijah's journals. He talks about Dad a lot."

"You weren't suppose to see those until you were older."

"Why, because it's the real story? If you were trying to hide the fact that Dad wasn't always a very nice guy, I got that memo. I got that memo the fourth or was it the fifth time we had to pack up in the middle of the night because a murderous horde of Dad's enemies had found us. Normal people don't make mortal enemies. Normal people don't have a nemesis."

Hayley's shoulders sagged as she realized she was about to have to have a conversation she'd been putting off for years. "Your father isn't always the best person in the world. But he loves you and almost everything he's done since you were born was for you."

"Nik can be-" Rebecca started.

While at the same time, Freya chimed in, "Niklaus loves-"

Hope stopped them all by holding her hand up. "I've read the journals. I know who he is and I know that he loves me. I was trying to find him because it seems like no matter what, he always finds an answer and I thought we could use some of that right now."

Hayley went to her and put her arm's around her. "Oh, Hope. I know you want to help, but putting yourself in danger isn't the way to do that. This shouldn't be your fight. It isn't fair for you to be thinking about things like this instead of music and boys."

Then she pulled back and gave her a stern look. "But you are grounded indefinitely. I shouldn't have to ground you yet. It's too soon for this. How does an eleven year old even get to New Orleans on their own?"

"I ran." Hope answered honestly.

"And there's the trouble with raising vampire children." Rebecca muttered under her breath, as she turned and walked away.

Freya nodded in agreement and did the same.

"You, go to your room. It only took you twenty minutes to run to New Orleans?"

"I started out here and took off in that direction and then, suddenly there I was." Hope told her as she started up the stairs. Hayley followed along behind her but something kept nagging at her.

She watched as Hope went into her room and shut the door, then she turned and went back downstairs.

She knocked as softly as she could on Freya's door and it opened pretty quickly.

"I think we might have a problem. I'm going to check something out. Can you keep an eye out?" she asked immediately.

Freya nodded. "You thinking it takes longer than twenty minutes to get to New Orleans, too?" she replied.

"Yeah, I am. Even at vampire speed it would take longer than that, right?"

"I would think so."

"What are we all whispering about?" Rebecca asked as she stepped into the living room.

Hayley motioned her over so they could keep their voices down. "How long do you think it would take for you to run to New Orleans?"

"I'm not sure but I was just leaving to go find out." Rebecca answered.

"That's where I was going," Hayley answered.

"No, let me go. I won't get anywhere near the city but your hybrid speed is faster than my vampire speed so it should be me who goes." Rebecca reasoned with them.  
She was out the door before either of them could argue.

Forty minutes later, she blew back through the door at top speed, stopping with precision timing in the exact middle of the living room floor. "I didn't even make it to Louisiana." She reported as she puffed some hair from her face. "So what gives? She didn't lie. The map told us where she was."

Freya took a deep breath and sighed. "It seems Hope is developing beyond my skills."

"What does that mean?" Hayley asked, concerned.

"It means we should all go to bed. Use your pendants. We'll meet in the garden. We need a plan."


	3. Chapter 3

"What do you mean, Hope used magic? Hope isn't supposed to be able to use magic." Elijah demanded. Hayley could see the pain his uselessness was causing him all over his face. He was always this way when a crisis arose and he was helpless to assist them.

"Hope is strong. I suspected sooner or later her powers would rival my own." Freya answered, then shrugged, "I guess it was sooner. I didn't expect it to happen so soon."

"Are you telling me that Hope is a stronger witch than you?" Kol asked. "She's a child, Freya."

"She's a strong child and she isn't like any of us. She's something completely different. A vampire that can tap into magic, a wolf that can turn at will, a witch with the strength of both. We don't know what Hope might be capable of." Elijah mused.

"Have you gotten any further with the venom. Is it what we need?" Kol asked.

"I was just getting to that. It looks like what Rebecca found was a Valeria wolf. I was going to try the spell tomorrow night."

"It will work?" Elijah asked, jumping to his feet.

"I'm encouraged. I still don't know if I possess the power it requires though."

"Then we use Hope. The cat is already out of the bag, there, so to speak. You can't keep lying to her anymore. You can't hide her any longer. It's time for her to embrace who and what she really is. If she's stronger than Freya she can protect herself now." Kol said.

"Wow, really Kol? She's not even a teenager yet and you think she's old enough to protect herself. You want me to go fetch a random person and let her trigger her wolf curse, too?" Hayley spat.

Kol sneered. "Well, you know, it's not a terrible idea."

"Kol," Elijah intervened in his best fatherly voice. "Do not be absurd. We aren't going to involve Hope in any of this unless we have no other choice."

"You know this isn't just for Hope's protection. It's for the protection of the kid that tags her during dodge ball, or the snotty girl who says something as Hope walks by her. She's in middle school, Kol. Kids are mean, but they shouldn't die because of it and I wouldn't want Hope to have to live with that kind of guilt."

"Nor would I." Elijah agreed. "It must be difficult enough being a vampire at her age. Adding any more to that would take away any childhood she might have left."

"So what do we do about her overpowering Freya's protection spell?" Hayley asked.

"I suppose I could try to reinforce it some. Might buy us some time."

Rebecca got up from where she'd been watching the exchange from a nearby patio chair. "You can channel me for the spell that should give it some extra juice. If that doesn't work, we'll have to track down a stronger witch and get her to do the spell."

"Yes, but first I have to attempt the spell for the cure. If I can't do it alone, this whole discussion may be pointless." Freya agreed.

"I'm not so sure. I think maybe even if we do need her for the cure, it might be better if she didn't remember helping us." Hayley said, in a quiet voice.

"You mean to glamor her?" Elijah asked, shocked. "We said we'd never do that to her. In fact, it was your idea. You said you never wanted to manipulate her like that and I agreed."

"I also said I never wanted to lie to her, but that lasted until she was four years old and able to lift the curse from Rebecca without batting an eye. I'm not sure what I think is right where Hope's power is concerned. It scares me, truthfully, the thought of what she might be capable of."

"We always knew she would be powerful. That's why you've taken such care in raising her with the proper values." Elijah reminded her. "Power doesn't always have to corrupt."

"I say she's strong enough. It's time to take the training wheels off. She's a resource we haven't tapped yet and maybe it's time we did." Kol argued.

"Hope is not a weapon. She's not a resource." Hayley bit out through clenched teeth.

"I didn't mean it like that," he sighed in frustration. "I'm just tired of being stuck here in this garden when there's fighting to be done out there."

"My daughter is not going to be collateral damage of your boredom," Hayley insisted in a raised voice.

"All of you just stop!" Rebecca interjected. "This is getting us nowhere. We aren't using Hope unless we have to and even then, I agree with Hayley. We have to protect her. She should be allowed to remain a child for as long as she can. If that means keeping things from her, then that's what we have to do."

Everyone was quiet for a moment while Rebecca's words sunk in.

Finally Elijah stirred. "I agree completely. So we should try the spell without Hope, use her if we need to then make her forget after. Then Freya and Rebecca will reinforce the dampening spell on Hope's magic."

Everyone nodded in agreement except Kol who ran his hand through his hair and stalked off to the other side of the garden. Freya and Rebecca made their exits as well, Freya back into the world of reality and Rebecca following Kol to try to smooth his ruffled feathers.

Elijah took hold of Hayley's hand and lead her over to their favorite swing. Once they settled there he wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. "Speaking of Hope, she used her pendant early this morning to pay me a little visit. She says she's worried about you."

"There is nothing to worry about. I'm fine, especially now that the cure is so close. Everything is going to be fine." Hayley assured him.

Elijah sighed. "I hope so. She tells me that you've been spending time in the basement."

Hayley shook her head in dismay. "She shouldn't have told you that. It's not like I spend all my time down there. I just go down there sometimes when I need a little extra reinforcement."

"You mentioned my suit. Have you been sleeping in my coffin?"

"Only occasionally." she confessed.

"Well, hopefully this won't be an issue any longer. But if things don't work out the way we hope-"

"I am not giving up. Don't even ask me to. It's not going to happen." She stopped him before he could even say the words.

He grew still and quiet behind her and she snuggled her back more deeply into his chest.

"Elijah, this thing we have, it's not like anything I've ever had before. It's stronger than anything I've ever felt before and there is no way I'm ever going to give up on it. I just can't. I've lost too much in my life already and you mean too much to me. I won't ever let you go. So you are just going to have to understand that and make peace with the fact that as long as I can keep fighting for us, I'm going to keep fighting."

She felt him chuckle into her hair, not a humorous chuckle, more of a resigned one. "I love you, too." He answered. "Truthfully, I feel the same way. But I also feel like I'm being selfish. You should be out there trying to find a way to be happy. You should have been out there years ago. I shouldn't have held on to you. I told you when I was bitten that I didn't want this life for you."

"How am I supposed to find a way to be happy out there when the only time I've ever been happy is with you and you're here?"

"You managed to be happy with Jackson," he mumbled as if the words left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Hayley turned in his arms so she could see his face. "I told myself I was happy with Jackson. I tried to make myself believe that. But if I was truly happy with him, why did I spend so much time on the balcony talking to you?"

"There were so many nights I fought myself against going out to my own balcony. I thought maybe if I wasn't around you could move on." His face was full of self-condemnation. "I felt terrible every time I lost the fight. I felt as if I failed you, but I just couldn't stay away."

"We've spent so much time struggling to stay away from each other. I think if we weren't supposed to be together, it wouldn't be so hard for us to forget about each other. So I'm done. No more struggling. I'm yours and you're mine and that's the way it's supposed to be." She said with such conviction it made him smile.

"Alright, no more talk about moving on. I've been yours since the moment you looked up at me and said, 'who the hell are you?'. I suppose fighting it has always been an exercise in futility."

"So it's settled, this spell is going to work. We are going to cure this bite and then we'll be together. It's destiny."

He chuckled again. "I haven't put much stock in destiny in a very long time, but you make me believe."

She rested her hand against his square jaw and pulled him in for a kiss. "I can't wait for our eternity to start," she whispered against his lips.

"Nor can I," he agreed before kissing her again.

Later, when Hayley finally slipped back to the land of the living to try to catch a few restful hours of sleep, Elijah watched her go and prayed that she was right.

She wasn't alone. He'd lost more in his thousand plus years of life than he could even remember. He wasn't sure he could bare to lose anything else. Especially not her, or Hope. Hayley was the one person in the world he felt knew him better than anyone else. He was confident in the fact that there was nothing he could do, nothing he could confess to she that she won't forgive.

He'd never had that before. Always before there was that notion lingering over his head, the notion that if the woman he was with only knew the real him, the monster he was inside. Hayley knew that monster, and it didn't scare her. She wasn't repulsed by it. She had her only monster, maybe not as ferocious as his, but still it was there and that meant she understood. She had her own dark side, so embracing his wasn't hard for her and he could never tell her how much that meant to him.

If there truly was such a thing as destiny, Elijah had finally, after a thousand years of searching, found his. And he agreed with Hayely, as selfish as it felt, as fruitless as it might be, he had every intention of holding on to that destiny with both hands and fighting for it with every bit of strength he could muster.


	4. Chapter 4

The boisterous noise of what could only grudgingly be called 'music' shook the walls and windows of the modest home where the Mikaelson's had settled in the hills of West Virginia. The raucous, rowdy intrusion was in stark contrast to the calm, serenity of the environment needed to conduct the business at hand.

"Hayley! You have to talk to them. I can't concentrate with all that going on out there." Freya complained for the hundredth time.  
Hayley sighed in resignation. "It's the full moon. You know how they get. They'll be off hunting soon and everything will calm down. Then we'll have plenty of time to do the spell before they get back."

"You haven't told them about it?" Rebecca asked. "Not even Dawson?"

"No, I haven't. I'm not sure how they are going to take having two more original vampires suddenly living in their midst," she explained. "I didn't want to ruffle any feathers I didn't have to ruffle."

"So you're plan is for them to just come home from hunting and find Elijah and Kol here with no warning at all?" Freya interjected.

"They'll be fine with it once it happens. I didn't want to take the chance that they would ask us to leave before we did the spell. I didn't want to wait any longer."

Rebecca shrugged nonchalantly. "Not much of a chance of that. Dawson would never ask you and Hope to leave."

"Really? Do you think that would still be true if he knew that the spell was going to bring Elijah back?" Hayley asked, sarcastically.

"You know his thing for you is on him. You've been nothing but upfront about how you feel. He can't blame for you for this mess. He got himself into it."

A knock at the door brought all of their attention there.

"It's open!" Rebecca called for the newcomer, already able to smell the wolf on the other side of the door.

6'4 inches of muscled, blond wolf walked through the door wearing a crooked smile, a faded pair of blue jeans with rips in the knees and not much else. It was typical garb for the wolves on their moon nights.  
Right out side the door to the Mikaelson's home there would be a party the size of a city block, scantily clad bodies, more food than anyone could ever eat, and music loud enough to be heard the next state over. It was a ritual for the Passmore Pack.

It was this ritual that had lead Hayley to them on her search for the venom. It was this ritual also that had caused her to set her roots here. That and their welcoming attitude. Even when Rebecca and Freya were added to the mix, the Passmore pack had still offered them, not just a sanctuary, but a home.

"What are you ladies doing inside? The parties out there?" he said, pointing over his shoulder.

"We noticed," Rebecca answered banally. "What is that dreadful noise anyway?"

"Blue Grass!" The wolf beamed proudly. "A few of Mitch's friends showed up and they have a band." He turned his crystal blue eyes to Hayley. "Aren't you coming out with us tonight?"

She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Dawson. But Hope's been sneaking away at night. I need to stay here and keep an eye on her. Besides, we have some witch business to take care of tonight."

"Hope's been sneaking out at night?" he asked, suddenly concerned.

"It's nothing. I'm taking care of it, but she's using magic. We need to deal with this before it becomes a problem. You understand?" she explained.

He nodded solemnly. "Of course, you have to make sure she's safe. How was she able to use magic? Has something gone wrong with the binding spell?"

Freya chuckled humorlessly. "No, the little bugger has just managed to out magic me is all. We need a stronger binding."

Dawson laughed, a full bodied, baritone sound that filled the room. "Tanner said she's strong. I thought, you know," he glanced at Rebecca, "Because of the vampire thing. I didn't know she was doing magic. Wow, she's something isn't she." he said, clearly impressed.

Tanner, Dawson's twelve year old son, had always been the good one. Almost inseparable since they were four years old, Hope and Tanner had grown up beside each other. Both more than normal children, Tanner had already enacted his wolf curse due to a tragic, but freak accident that left his mother dead when he was eight.

Hope and Tanner had formed a bond forged in the fact that they were different, even more different than the people who called them kin. Hope was far more than a young wolf who had yet to enact her curse. She was at the moment more vampire than anything else. Tanner was the youngest member of the pack to ever enact his curse and begin to change with the moon. Theirs was a friendship born of

empathy.

Then there was Tabitha, Hope's best girlfriend, a young, beautiful tawny haired girl with an infectious smile. Hayley had no idea how this friendship had started but she was happy with it. She was happy in general with the way Hope had managed to ingratiate herself into her new pack.

With the Crescents nearly extinct now, Hayley had feared Hope wouldn't grow up learning about her wolf heritage. The Passmore, a break off of the Crescents from a long, long time ago, had served to fill the role nicely, offering them a place to live and the safety of their numbers with warmth and acceptance.

It hadn't hurt that Hope had all the charisma and charm that her father possessed when he was actually trying to be charismatic and charming.

"Yes, she is." Hayley smiled.

"She's just the light of our life," Rebecca agreed, her tone laced with sarcasm.

Dawson stood in the middle of the room and looked at each of them in turn for a moment. "There is something else going on, right?"

Hayley spread her hands in apology. "Like I said, witch business."

"So you're going to trying to reinforce the binding?" he surmised.

"I'm going to use Rebecca to try to reinforce the binding, yes." Freya answered.

Again, he paused. "Have you all considered how mad she's going to be when she finds out she's been able to use magic since she was a child? You're essentially lying to her. She's about to be a teenager. Are you sure you wouldn't rather just let nature take it's course here before she becomes moody and mouthy and you have to confess to her that you've been hiding this from her since she was a baby?"

Hayley got to her feet. "We have and we have also considered the fact that she's my daughter and this is none of your business."

He held up his hands in defense. "I'm not trying to stick my nose in. I just want you to think about how this will affect Hope in the long run. I understood the need when she was young and couldn't possibly control her magic. But she's old enough now to understand things. Maybe it's time to talk to her instead of lying to her."

Rebecca chuckled. "We're the Mikaelson's lying to each other and keeping secrets is our family motto. Although I voted for, Bugger off, everyone."

"I'm just trying to let her be a child as long as I can." Hayley argued.

This time Dawson chuckled. "Hope wasn't a child when I met her and she was what? Four at the time. I mean there's precocious and then there's whatever she was, but it wasn't childlike."

"Look, I appreciate the advice and I'll think about it but this isn't a decision I'm going to be pushed into making so until I'm ready, we're going to reinforce the binding." Hayley said in a tone that meant it was the end of the discussion.

Dawson nodded. "Okay, do whatever you need to do. Just tell me there isn't a chance that some witch is going to sense the spell and send trouble our way. I'd like a heads up if things are going to go down. It wouldn't be good if you were attacked tonight when everyone will be out on the hunt."

"We can take care of ourselves." Rebecca reminded him.

He spun on her quickly. "Can you also take care of the pack members that aren't coming tonight?"

"Your mother?" Hayley asked, concerned.

"For one. We also have two pregnant women, they won't be turning. And then there's the children and the people that haven't been cursed yet. So basically a handful of pretty much helpless wolves will be right out there, unguarded. I want your guarantee that whatever you do tonight won't mean they might not still be there when we get home tonight."

Freya shrugged. "The spell is a fast one. It shouldn't draw attention and even it does, I'll be quick enough that no one could lock down a location."

Hayley and Rebecca both looked at her as if trying to ask her a question without words. She nodded almost imperceptibly.

Dawson's hands went to his hips and he eyed each of them again. "And... What else is happening?"

"Nothing." Rebecca brushed him off. "Just another little teeny spell. Shouldn't cause any problems either, right, Freya?"

"Right, shouldn't be anything to worry about."

"What the hell is going on?!" Dawson shouted causing them all to jump a little in startled surprise.

Hayley quickly quieted him with a shh. "You're going to get Hope down here in the middle of everything."

"Oh, sorry I forgot about how much you like keeping things from her. That's fine. Keep whatever you want from your daughter. But I'm the alpha of the pack that has sworn loyalty to you. You don't get to keep things from me, especially not dangerous things."

Hayley took a deep breath. Then she got up and took his hand, dragging him out to the porch and shutting the door behind her.

She pulled him the steps leading up to the house and urged him to sit down beside her. When he did, his leg brushed hers and she purposefully moved a bit further away from him.

"What is this? What's going on? Are you planning on leaving?" he asked.

Hayley shook her head. "No, not yet anyway. But we have the last vial of venom. We found the Valeria wolf."

His eyes widened for a moment before his shoulders tensed. "You're going to do this tonight? Make the cure for the other two?"

"Yeah, we're going to try." Hayley acknowledged.

"So when I get back tonight there is a very real chance that Elijah will be here." He concluded.

"Yeah, there is." she nodded.

His smile was forced when he leaned in to hug her. "I'm really happy for you and for Hope. I know she needs her family. She talks about them all the time."

Hayley hugged him back for a moment before breaking it off and moving away again. "I don't want this to change things between us. You've been a real friend to me through all this and I don't want to lose that."

"You've never lied to me. I've always known exactly where I stand with you. Nothing is going to change. Elijah or no Elijah, I've told you how I felt. You told me how you felt. It's done. It's been done for a while now. I thought we said we were going to pretend my night of drunken professions of love never happened."

Hayley was quiet for a minute, before she cleared her throat. "There is something I need you to know and I need you to hear it before Elijah comes back."

"What?" he asked.

"If there was no Elijah..." she began but he held up his hand to stop her.

Then he stood and moved down the steps into the yard. "Let's just leave that sentence right where it is. Nothing else needs saying. I'll bring the party in early tonight. You'll have the pack surrounding you before it gets too late. So we'll have your back if you need us."

"Like we said, it shouldn't be a problem."

"A spell strong enough to make a cure for Marcel's bite? I know when something is being downplayed, Hayley. There is every chance you are going to attract some unwanted attention. We'll be here."

"Dawson," she stopped him before he could turn to leave. "Thank you, for everything."

He tipped his head in a nod. "No thanks needed, Ma'am. I'm just doing my job."

She chuckled as she watched him trot off to gather his pack, then she turned and went back inside.

"The pack is coming back early tonight in case something goes wrong." She told the two women waiting for her.

The music stopped suddenly and in a matter of minutes the noise outside quieted to a dull hum.

"Wow, he is go at getting people moving, isn't he?" Rebecca jibed.

"So we should get started." Freya announced as she rose from the couch and went up the stairs. Hayley and Rebecca followed along behind her.

Hayley bit her bottom lip as she watched Freya add the last of the werewolf toxins to the silver bowl in the center of her alter. Smoke rolled from the mixture as bubbles began to form across the surface of the green liquid.

Then Freya put her hands on the sides of the bowl and began to chant quietly at first then in an ascending cadence as she strived to gather as much power as she could. Liquid was nearly boiling now and the smoke filled the room causing Hayley to work to suppress the urge to cough.

Then suddenly the bowl dropped from Freya's hands and she sagged backwards in exhaustion.

"Is it done?" Hayley asked, quickly stepping forward and eying the bowl.

"No, I can't do it." She panted, breathlessly. "Get Hope."

Hayley hesitated for only a moment before heading off down the hall to wake her daughter who had been spending the evening with her uncles.

She slide the pendant from her hand slowly, allowing her to adjust to being taken from their world and brought back into reality. Then she shook her wake.

"Mom?" Hope asked, sitting up. "What's wrong?"

Hayley took her hand. "Aunt Freya needs your help."

"With what? How can I help?" Hope asked as Hayley dragged her from the bed and pulled her to her feet.

"You can do more than you know you can sweetheart and right now we need you to help us bring your uncles back." Hayley explained.

"I don't understand what is happening." Hope protested.

"Baby, we don't have a lot of time for this. You have to hurry."

Hayley ushered her into the ritual space and Rebecca and Freya urged her towards the table.

"Okay, sweetheart. We're going to do this really quickly." Freya told her as she removed Hope's bracelet from her wrist. "I need you to hold on to the bowl and repeat the words I'm saying. Natural instinct should do the rest, Understand?"

Hope nodded timidly. "Hold the bowl and repeat what you say. Yeah, I got it. And this is going to make the cure?"

"This is going to bring them back to us." Freya nodded.

Then she repeated the ritual from earlier, this time with Hope's help. Then suddenly Freya's hands were pushed from the bowl and she stepped aside as Hope raised the bowl in her hands, the chant spouting powerfully from her lips as smoke roiled from the liquid's surface. As she continued, the smoke turned from gray to blue before Hope set the bowl down and smiled proudly.

"I did it." She beamed as she looked around at her stunned aunts and mother.

Hayley went to her quickly and wrapped her arms around her. "Yes, you did. You did a great job."

While Hayley hugged her, Freya slipped the bracelet back on her wrist.

"Now let's go see if it worked."


	5. Chapter 5

The first thing he tasted in ten years was her. He'd know the taste anywhere. Sweet, succulent, and a little bit spicy, that was his Hayley. His tongue tingled with the feel of her blood and in a matter of moments his whole body was alive with the power of a single drop of her life giving essence.

He felt her everywhere, felt connected to her in a way only a vampire can know after feeding. She was everything to him in that moment.

As he opened his eyes, she was there again, hovering over him and on his other side, a miniature mirror image, with the only exception being the eyes. Hope had Nicklaus' eyes, blue and turbulent like the ocean.

Elijah raised his head and saw that beyond Hope, Kol was being hovered over by his sisters, each of them on either side, helping him to rise from his coffin. Elijah looked around him and smiled at his girls. Rebekah and Freya would always be his family, but Hayley and Hope were his girls. These two women, now with the hands gently on his shoulders urging him upright, these two women were his life. They represented everything he cared about in the world, everything he would kill or die for. And Hayley was at the center of it all. He had to share Rebekah and Freya with Kol and Nicklaus. He had to share Hope with Nicklaus, but Hayley was his and his alone. Whatever friendship had sparked between his sisters and Hayley, it couldn't compare to the depth of his feelings for her.

"What do we do now?" Hope asked as she eyed a bowl of blue liquid sitting on a table not far from where they all stood.

A sound upstairs turned everyone's attention in that direction before Rebekah offered to investigate. She returned a few moments later. "Dawson and the pack are back. He said to tell Hayley that they're outside if we need them."

Freya retrieved the bowl and brought it first to Kol as he was bitten first and closer to his final death than Elijah.

She feed him some of the contents then stood back and watched him with a critical eye on the bite wound that was causing all the trouble.

Hope's attention was drawn there as well.

Elijah only had eyes for Hayley. If this didn't work and Freya wasn't able to put them back to sleep in time, he didn't know how long he might have and he intended to spend every second of it lost in her.

Hayley, apparently thinking along the same lines, brought her hand up and rested it against his jaw, cradling his face in her palm.

"Hi, you." She smiled at him.

He turned his face to kiss her palm before bringing his own hand up to guide her lips down to his. "I can't believe you think this suit doesn't smell." He teased as he brushed his lips across hers.

Rebekah who was now standing between the two coffins couldn't help but smile. "The reason the suit didn't smell too badly when she was down here is that I come down here every morning and sprinkle it with your cologne because I know she comes down here to sleep. Unfortunately, it doesn't last very long."

Freya shrugged. "She had me do it while she was away." she added, though her eyes never left Kol's injury. "Something's happening."

Kol suddenly gritted his teeth as a look of pain covered his face. "It's burning, Freya. What have you done to me?" He ground out through his teeth.

"It should be working. I don't understand what's happening."

"Put me back to sleep," Kol snapped quickly. "Before it's too late, put us both back to sleep."

Freya's eyes went wild and she ran to the table where she had everything prepared in case things went wrong. It held objects that represented both Elijah and Kol, along with candles, a bowl of herbs and written symbols in white chalk around the edges. She put her hands over the objects and began to chant.

Hope hesitated for only a moment before reaching a hand out to each of her uncles and whispering under her breath.

The last thing Elijah saw was Hayley smiling down at him, unable to hide the panic in her eyes.

"This isn't over," she whispered before kissing him soundly. "We'll find another way."

Then he was once again back in the accursed garden staring across the white marble, bubbling fountain at Kol.

* * *

"What happened?!" Hayley demanded as she eased Elijah back into his coffin. "What went wrong?"

Freya, looking completely dumbstruck, shook her head. "I don't know. It should have worked."

Rebekah caught Hayley's eye and motioned her towards Hope who was standing between her uncles with a hand on each of their shoulders and looking dumbstruck herself.

It was decision time, that much was clear from the look on her face. Near panic flashed in her eyes as well as bewilderment and awe. It was time to decide whether to hide the truth from her or let her go.

"I can do magic," she whispered as she pulled her hands back and looked at them as if they were something foreign.

A ruckus upstairs brought all their attention there. It was followed quickly by the basement door opening and slamming shut again. In the next instant, Dawson came barreling down the stairs.

"We have company. Witches everywhere. They're coming at us from all sides. My guys can't hold them off for long."

Before anyone could stop her, Hope mounted stairs, taking them two at a time. "I can." She said before storming through the door and into the dangers awaiting outside.

"Shit!" Hayley exclaimed before sprinting after her.

"Bloody hell!" Rebekah agreed as she took off as well.

Dawson and Freya were both hot on their heels.

By the time Hayley stepped out to the porch, Hope was standing on the steps with her hands in the air above her head. Three witches on each side of her were being suspended as if by invisible strings attached to her fingers.

Hayley leaped off the left side of the railing and tackled yet another witch who was making her way towards her daughter.

Hope raised her hands higher still then made a sweeping motion, tossing all six witches aside as if they were nothing.

Rebekah came out of the house behind her and made a jump from the right side of the porch, landing in the middle of three more witches who were holding hands and mumbling under their breaths. She tackled them all in one motion, sending them into a large oak tree at the corner of the Mikaelson's yard.

A moment later, Freya and Dawson had joined the fray, each of them darting past Hope and finding targets of their own.

Hope stood on the steps, looking out over the growing melee with an unnatural calmness on her face. A distant rumbling began in the distance as if a storm were brewing just beyond the horizon.

Hayley, finding a moment without an enemy to attack, turned her attention to her daughter, checking to make sure she was okay first and then opening her mouth to tell her to get back inside the house.

Before she had a chance to speak the ground under her feet began to shake, then the skies opened up, sending a deluge of rain down on the gathered crowd. Flashes of lightning struck the ground in several places as tiny pebbles of hail flew through the air.

Everyone stopped fighting as the storm and the earthquake both intensified.

Then as suddenly as it all started, it stopped and Hope dropped her hands for a moment. Then she surveyed the crowd, found a witch and raised her hand once again.

The witch came to his feet like a rag doll being snatched up by a child. He hovered for a moment before Hope brought him to the bottom of the stairs with a flick of her wrist.

"My name is Hope Mikaelson. Vincent sent you all here to find me. Well, I'm not hiding anymore. Here I am. Take this message back to him." She called out to the crowd at large.

Hayley leaped forward, trying to get to her daughter before she could do what Hayley was afraid she was about to do. "Hope! NO!" She shouted.

But she was too late. With another flick of her wrist, the witch dropped to the ground, his neck snapped as if it were nothing more than a twig under Hope's foot.

"Tell Vincent to release my father. He has two days or I'm coming to get him myself and I'll tear New Orleans to the ground to find him."

The witches all stared at her, completely silent and completely still as the rain still splattered around them in fat drops, falling from the leaves of the trees scattered around the community.

After a moment, when still nothing moved, Hope raised her hands again and the ground began to shake once more. "I said GO!" she shouted.

All the witches scattered, dragging their dead away with them as they went.

Hope watched them all leave. When the last one was out of site, she dropped to the steps as if she'd been holding something back and could no longer keep it in.

Hayley watched in horror as her eleven year old daughter began to change before her eyes.

Minutes later, instead of an innocent, bright eyed girl standing on the steps, there was a small, yet ferocious looking white wolf.


	6. Chapter 6

Haley's muscles and heart pumped as she sprinted off through the woods chasing an elusive flash of white that was staying just ahead of her. She careened sideways into a tree and let out a yelp as her side contacted the bark and rip away a tuft of fur.

Still running full tilt towards the other wolf, Haley threw her head back and howled in an attempt to stop her daughter or at least slow her down so she could catch her.

She had no idea what thoughts were going on in Hope's head as she raced through the woods for the first time as a wolf. She remembered her first time. It had been exhilarating and life confirming. But then she hadn't triggered her curse on the full moon. The first time she changed wasn't moments after she'd killed someone, it was weeks.

For Hope, Haley feared there was too much happening too quickly. Using magic, becoming a wolf, all the expanse of a few hours. It would be too much for anyone to take. Her eleven year old daughter couldn't possibly be in a very stable frame of mind.

She had to keep pushing. She couldn't lose her in the dense woods.

Reassurance came a moment later when she felt another wolf coming up behind her. His dark coat glistened with sweat as he gave her a look then powered past her as he also followed after the newly turned child.

Dawson, bigger than Haley in wolf form, stronger since he spent far more time as a wolf, darted past her and off through a path she'd missed that might serve to cut Hope off. She hoped he knew what he was doing.

Haley was tiring, and Hope didn't appear to even be winded. Getting in front of her might just be the only way to stop her.

She lost sight of her and panic spread through her like wildfire. But not far ahead, Dawson had Hope at a stand still as he blocked her path forward and Haley, coming up behind, blocked her escape.

Hope dropped her head to the ground for a moment, then looked back up at her mother. Haley tossed her head back towards home.

Hope hesitated and Haley thought she might take off again. But thankfully, Tanner took that second to find them. Hope slowly sauntered towards him and the two of them strode off towards home.

When she came in, Hope went straight to her room and slammed the door behind her. Haley tried a few times to get her to open it and talk to her before Freya convinced her to give her some time. The women decided it was time they went to the garden to fill the brothers in on the night's events.

"We have no choice now," Haley was saying as she sat on the swing next to Elijah. "We can't make her forget. She's enacted her wolf curse."

Freya's shoulders slumped. "Are you sure it's a good idea to leave her with control of her magic? You saw what happened. This is what a teenager with that much power can do."

"Let me talk to her. Elijah and I will talk to her. If that doesn't work we'll think of something," she said.

"The wolves aren't going to be happy about all the damage. And whatever you do, I suggest you do it before Vincent decides to acquiesce to her terms and deliver her father. Because when Nic arrives it will be with blood in his eyes and right now, Hope is a perfect weapon." Rebecca put in before she took hold of the pendant around her neck and suddenly disappeared into nothingness.

Haley looked at Freya nervously. "He wouldn't use his daughter like that, right?"

"It's Nicklaus. There is nothing I can say he wouldn't do for certain. But Rebecca is right. If Vincent let's him go, revenge will be on the top of his 'to do' list." She grabbed her own pendant and disappeared as well.

Kol cleared his throat. "Well you know where I stand in all this. I say it's time to let Hope be who she is. She's strong enough to take it." Then he turned and took off to another part of the garden, leaving them alone.

"I don't know what to say." Elijah said. "I mean Rebecca is right. I want to believe that Nicklaus wouldn't use her in any way, but what he's been going through these past ten years, it can change a man and he wasn't the most stable person to begin with. You have to talk to Hope. You have to make her understand how dangerous she can be."

"No, we are going to talk to Hope, you and I. She sees you as a father, Elijah. She will listen to you."

"Hope doesn't see me as a father," he scoffed immediately.

Haley laughed at his naivety. It wasn't something she saw often from the normally wise and preceptive man. "Of course she does. It might not be the most conventional relationship but you are the only father she has really known. That's why she read your journals. That's why she comes to you when she has a problem. You're the man that's always been in her life."

"I never intended to take Nicklaus' place," he said. "That's was never what I wanted. He should have been here watching her grow up. It should be him she comes to."

"No one believes you intentionally pushed your way past Klaus. And whether he'll admit it or not, he'd be glad to know you were here when he couldn't be."

Elijah chuckled. "Oh I can promise you that is something he will never admit. What happened with the cure? Does Freya know?" His voice was quiet as if he didn't really want to know the answer or was afraid of what it might be.

"She thinks we're missing something. Freya's studying it again."

"What could we be missing? We have a sample of the venom of every wolf pack in North America. That's exactly what Lucian used when he created the spell."

"I have no idea. But Dawson has a friend who knows a witch. She's supposed to be pretty powerful. We're going to have her take a look at the spell, too. Rebecca has even offered to take the spell to some guru she knows in Tibet. No one is giving up on this and I need to know that you aren't either."

He shifted and tightened his hold on her. "I'm trying very hard to maintain my optimism." He told her.

They were silent for a few moments before he cleared his throat. "So Dawson is going to help?" he said in the most forced causal way possible.

"Lijah, don't start." Hayley warned him.

"I was just asking." he said, innocently.

Haley turned to face him. "Do you really want to fight tonight on top of everything else?"

"I wasn't planning on fighting with you," he replied. "Why can't you see that I just want what's best for you."

"Okay, so you do want to fight, What the hell I think I have one more in me tonight."she muttered under her breath. Then she got to her feet and turned to him. "Why can't you see that that isn't your decision to make? You don't get to chose what's best for me."

He stopped swinging and got to his feet as well. "You are wasting your life in this imaginary world with me. You should be living. You should be making a family, having more children. You could be happy with Dawson. You could make a life. Don't tell me you haven't thought about that?"

"I haven't. I have a life. I have a family and I am happy. I will be even happier when you are back in the real world with me, but I will never be truly happy in any world without you. Jackson proved that to me." She protested.

"You loved Jackson. You were happy with him." Elijah argued.

Haley sighed, tired of saying the same things over and over again. "I was content with him. I wasn't happy. I am happy with you. You are the man I want. You are the one I chose. Stop this. Just stop. What do I have to say to you to prove that I'm not going anywhere? What can I do?"

Elijah dropped back into the swing again, causing it to jolt unsteadily for a moment. "I hate watching you waste you life waiting on something that might never happen. Hiding you away from the world in this dream is inexcusable of me. I feel like a monster for keeping you from moving on."

She came to sit beside him. "You aren't hiding me away. I come here willingly." Then she sighed. "You Mikaelson's and your issues." She shook her head solemnly.

Elijah laughed out loud. "We are a messed up bunch." He agreed.

"Well, let me try to clear up some of yours." Haley smiled. "I am never giving up on or leaving you. I am not here out of any twisted sense of duty or pity. You are not a monster. You are not manipulating me. In fact, you have no control over me whatsoever. I will come and go as I please and I chose to come. I love you. I am happy here with you. This is exactly where I want to be." She paused and considered that for a moment. "Well, okay, being with you in the real world is exactly where I want to be and I will make that happen, someday. Until then, you're stuck in here with me."

He listened to her lament quietly and attentively as a slow smile began to creep across his lips. When she finished he leaned in and kissed her softly. "Well then, I guess I'll just have to learn to live with having you around."


	7. Chapter 7

Hope stayed in her room all day. At one time or another all three women tried to coax her out, but none had any success. It wasn't until after dinner that Haley tried once again and found Hope's door slightly ajar and the room beyond empty.

She found her, after an exhaustive search of the house, in the basement between her uncle's coffins. She was surprised to find her there, though. It wasn't a place Hope went often.

"Go away!" She shouted sullenly as the basement door opened, giving away her location.

When Haley started down the stairs it was with Freya and Rebecca hot on her heels.

"We need to talk to you, Hope."

"I'm busy." Hope told them through clenched teeth. "Go away."

When she made it to the bottom of the stairs she saw the two coffins opened and Hope stood in the middle with a hand on each of their chests.

"What are you doing?!" Haley demanded as she stepped forward and prepared to grab her daughter away from the two men.

Hope turned her attention to her mother for only a split second, opening her eyes and narrowing them at her like daggers. "What I've probably been able to do for a while now. Get back and let me do this. I know it'll be hard for you to trust me, but give it a try."

Haley, wounded by Hope's tone, turned and went back to the bottom of the stairs with Rebecca and Freya. They watched in silence as Hope muttered something under her breath while continuing to hold her hands on her uncles' chests.

After a time, Hope dropped her hands and moved pasts her aunts and her mother, leaving them staring after her as she left the basement.

"Check on them. I'll go after her." Haley told the others as she sprinted up the steps two at a time.

Hope was in her room, sitting Indian-style in the middle of the bed as if she were waiting for Haley's arrival. Several spell books lay open around her and Haley noticed the one her daughter was staring at when she entered was Ester's original spell, the spell that created the vampires so many years ago.

"I didn't mean to kill that witch." she started quickly, as she placed the ancient page down on a book carefully. "I was just so angry and I don't know what happened. These people are the reason my uncles are in coffins in the basement and I can only visit them when I'm asleep. They are the reason I don't really remember my father. They are the reason we've been running most of our lives. They cursed Aunt Becca and poisoned Aunt Freya. They deserve to die. All of them deserve to die." She slumped down and her shoulders dropped. "I was just so angry."

"I'm not angry at you, Hope. I'm concerned." Haley told her as she came to sit at the foot of the bed.

"You lied to me. Who knows how long ago I could have ended all this!" Hope retorted.

Haley shifted. "I know I kept things from you, but I was doing my job. I was protecting you. I wasn't sure what you could do and Vincent can track you if you use magic."

"How could you not tell me though? I understand that I needed to be strong enough to fight Vincent. But how long have I been strong enough? We'll never know because you never gave me a chance to find out."

Haley regarded her daughter very carefully. "And you're convinced you're strong enough to fight him now?" she asked.

Hope raised her chin defiantly. "I know I am."

"Being strong enough to kill a man doesn't make you old enough to understand what that kind of power means." Haley pointed out.

"You mean because I'm a child," Hope sneered.

"Yes, because you are a child and don't you dare tell me you aren't a child anymore. Eleven is a child in anyone's book. I was afraid you were too young to handle this much power and if you'd like to take a look around the neighborhood, you'll see I was right."

"I didn't mean to do all that either." Hope answered in a small voice. "Is it bad?'

Haley sighed. "It isn't good and I think you'll be spending tomorrow helping these nice people who have given us a place to stay and their protection fix any damage you might have caused."

"Daddy will be home tomorrow." Hope said as if it were a fact.

Haley laughed. "Hope, I highly doubt your little show even fazed Vincent. He isn't letting Klaus go. He isn't afraid of you, Sweetheart. This is exactly what I meant when I said you were too young to understand. This is why I hide your magic from you."

Hope's eyes flashed in anger. "No, you were trying to keep me from being who I am."

"We were doing no such thing." A new voice came from the door and Haley's blood froze for a moment as the sound registered in her mind.

She turned slowly, eyes half closed as if she were afraid of what she might find in the doorway, or rather what she might not find in the doorway.

But there he was, as she slowly opened her eyes they focused, first on his chest, still clad in the smelly suit she had no doubt he would be burning in due time. When she first looked at his face he was watching Hope, but only for a moment. Then he turned his warm, alert brown eyes on her and she was instantly lost.

She thought she heard a squeak escape her lips as words were too hard to form. She'd imagined this moment so many, many times but all thoughts of what she'd say or do were gone now and all she could think was, he's alive.

He released her gaze as he took a step forward and turned his attention back to Hope. "We had no intention of keeping the truth about the magic from you forever. We were simply trying to keep you safe until we knew you were ready." he explained. Then his face turned stern for a moment. "And I won't have you talking to your mother that way. She has done nothing but try to protect you."

Haley still frozen on the spot at the foot of the bed watched in envy as Hope got up from the bed and went to him, falling into his chest and letting him envelope her in his arms. "I'm so glad it worked." she said as she hugged him tightly to her and he returned the fierce embrace.

"I don't understand." Elijah said as he continued to hold her. "We tried your blood before and it didn't work. Why this time?"

"I wasn't a wolf then. I had to enact the curse in order for it to work. I had to be all three, wolf, vampire and witch. Now I am." She told him as she pulled away and turned back to her mother. "I'm still really mad. I understand why you thought you had to do what you did. But I'm still mad."

Haley didn't answer. Elijah was once again eying her from the distance of a few footsteps away and neither of them made a move to close the gap that separated them.

Hope watched them both with curious eyes. "I'm mad but I'll get over it. I'm not going to cause anymore trouble tonight." she offered.

Still both of them simply stayed put and stared.

Hope then raised her arms above her head in an exaggerated stretch and yawned loudly. "Well, it's way past my bedtime. I should really be turning in. Why don't you two go have a chat downstairs or whatever?" she tried again.

Still neither moved.

"What the bloody hell are you doing?!" She finally yelled loud enough to bring them out of the stupor they had fallen into.

Elijah cleared his throat and purposely looked away from Haley, letting his eyes find his niece instead.  
"Yes, I suppose it is getting late. I'll see you in the morning. Thank you, Hope. Thank you for saving us."

Hope went to him and kissed his cheek. "I'm just really glad it worked. It's nice to actually meet you, Uncle Elijah."

Elijah gave her a quick kiss as well then turned and left the room without looking back.

"What the hell was that?" Hope asked as she came back to her bed and sank down into the middle of it.

Haley wet her dry lips and took a deep breath. It felt like the first breath she'd taken since she heard his voice. Then she realized it was exactly the first breath she'd taken since.

"He's alive. He's really here." She mumbled, quietly as if the information was still seeping into her brain.

Hope nodded. "Yep, he's here or rather, he's out there and for some reason, you're still in here."

Haley shook her head and got to her feet. "I need to be sure you're okay." She told her.

Hope nodded again. "I'm fine. I know we have things to talk about, but I'm pretty sure they can wait till tomorrow. Right now, go. You've been waiting for him for ten years. Go."

Haley started towards the door, then stopped abruptly and turned back to her daughter. "Promise me you won't go anywhere tonight. Promise me you'll go straight to sleep and you won't do anything else."

Hope got up again and went to her mother. "I promise you. I'm tired. I'm going to sleep. Besides, I love you and I love him. I wouldn't do anything to ruin tonight for either of you. Straight to sleep, I promise. No more drama from me tonight. I'll save it all up for breakfast in the morning."

Haley pulled her in and kissed her forehead. Then suddenly she grabbed her and pulled her tightly in against her. "Thank you, Hope."

Voices in the hall lead Haley off in that direction. Male voices were a bit of a novelty in the Mikaelson household lately and the voices downstairs in her living room were distinctly male and distinctly raised in anger.

"She destroyed our homes!" One of them was saying. "That earthquake destroyed homes."

Haley rounded the corner just in time to see Rebecca roll her eyes. "She didn't destroy your homes. The Earthquake didn't do near as much damage as you're claiming it did and we'll be happy to help you repair anything that was damaged."

She lowered her foot to take the last step from the stairs and throw herself into the fray when she was suddenly pulled back and by the time she stopped she was standing on the landing once again, looking down over the ruckus.

"My sisters seem to have that all well in hand. I don't believe your voice is needed in the mix." Elijah said as he towered over her, so close his chest was almost touching hers.

She was startled for the briefest of seconds at having been snatched out of thin air, but it didn't take her long to lose herself in him once again. She raised her hand and tentatively reached out towards him. Her fingers connected with the solid firmness of his chest and her breath caught in her throat.

"You really are here," she gasped out breathlessly.

Elijah pulled her into him and gathered her in his arms. "I really am here." he confirmed.

Haley laid her head against his chest and felt the warmth coming from him. Then she sighed. "Now I'm exactly where I want to be, finally."

Elijah reached down and lifted her from her feet. "Well, I'm not. Where are we going?"

Haley nestled into his arms. "End of the hall." she pointed distractedly before she began pulling at his tie.

With vampire speed to aid them both, by the time they were down the hall and standing beside her bed, she had his tie undone and his shirt mostly unbuttoned.

He set her down and shrugged off both the shirt and jacket with no regard for their well being. Buttons flickered across the floor as he dropped both garments to the floor. Haley watched him in fascination. There was something on his face, something different, darker, more primal than anything she'd ever seen there before. His eyes bore into hers, holding her stare as his hands began to slowly divest her of her own clothing.

She felt a rash of goosebumps across her back as the night air bit into her exposed skin while he flung her shirt into a dark recess of the room.

She didn't realized she was doing it until her hands were pulling the belt from around his waist.

She felt as if she were in a daze as she watched him dispose of the rest of their clothing. Then he picked her up again and placed her gently in the middle of the bed, it's softness a stark contrast to the firmness of his shoulders under her hands as he hovered above her.

She felt herself swallow hard as he pulled back and allowed himself a long, leisurely look at her. His hand resting on her bent knee, began a slow, torturous journey, down her leg, across her stomach and up between her heaving breasts. Fingers glided over her skin with the most delicate touch possible left a trail of pure heat in their wake.

A slow, croaked smile spread across his lips as he finally returned his gaze to her eyes. "You are even more beautiful than I remember." he whispered into the silence of the night.

Haley dropped her eyes, letting them survey the contours of his chest, the ripple of his abs, the strength in the muscles that flexed in his arms as he held himself above her. "So are you," she smiled back at him.

He leaned down to kiss her and she gasped as his tongue swept across the roof of her mouth. She indulged in the taste of him, a taste she'd been craving for so many years.

His hand came up and he cupped her breast in his palm while his thumb flicked across the nipple hardening it further as if it had been aching for his touch.

When he broke the kiss, the look was back, the foreign look, the one she couldn't quite define. It was a look of needy, possessive, passion, a look of desperate hunger and fiery adoration. She gave him a questioning look, hoping to encourage him to say whatever it was that it looked like he wanted to say so badly.

He glanced away and when his eyes found hers again, the look was still there just less intense as if he'd managed to tamper down his emotions in patented 'Elijah' fashion. But still he took a deep breath and wet his lips before he spoke in a soft voice. "I feel as if you are going to disappear any moment now."

Haley shook her head quickly in response. "I'm not. I'm real. You're real. This is real. We can finally be happy. We can finally be a family again."

"I've lived a long life, a long lonely life. In a thousand years I've only truly given myself to a handful of women. But I've never shared myself with any of them the way I've shared myself with you. You know everything there is to know about me, the good and the bad. I don't feel as if I need to hide anything from you. You've seen the monster I try so desperately to hide and you don't shy away from it."

Haley blinked back the tears that began to form in her eyes. Never one for emotional outpourings, she hadn't expected such a blatant admission from him. "I don't just shy away from it." She smiled at him as she cupped his jaw in her hand. "I love you for it. I love all of you, even your darkness. Knowing your monster means I don't have to hide mine from you either."

His kiss was quick and stole the breath from her lungs with its intensity. Her hands clutched her shoulders tightly, pulling him in more and further deepening the kiss.

His mouth moved from her lips, following the line of her jaw before dropping down to take her nipple between his lips. She arched her back into his touch, reveling in the eloquence of his technique.

No one had ever touched her with such splendid perfection. He seemed to instinctively know just how and where she wanted him.

The first time they were together it was about saying goodbye to something they had never really had. The last time it was about comfort and need.

This time it was only about the two of them. Ten years of longing, of yearning and wanting, ten years of falling more and more in love with each passing moment they spent together getting to know everything there was to know about each other. It was the culmination of years of need, a decade of unfulfilled desire.

When they came together it was with a clash of ecstasy unlike anything either of them had ever experienced before, a melding of more than bodies, a merging of two souls coming together at long last.

Hands entwined around each other, bodies moving in perfect sync, eyes locked in a fervent stare, it was a completion and a new beginning all in one.

Later as they lay wrapped around each other, gasping for unneeded air, Elijah raised the hand that was still grasped tightly in his and kissed the back of it softly. "I love you." he panted as he brought their hands to the middle of his sweat drenched chest and held it there as if he were afraid to let it go.

"I love you, too," she whispered in reply as she struggled to nestle herself deeper into his side. "And I'm never letting you go again."

His arm tightened around her waist, flexing with an almost bruising force. "I'm never leaving you again." he promised.


	8. Chapter 8

He glanced over her bare shoulder at the clock beside the bed and felt another painfully acute stab of urgency fill him. She had only drifted off an hour ago and he was determined not to wake her. It wouldn't be fair of him. After all, she hadn't been the one trapped in a dream world for ten years. At this point he wasn't sure he would ever sleep again. But he couldn't expect her to feel the same restlessness.

She'd been in the world, living, growing, becoming stronger and even more beautiful.

Of course, being a hybrid, she looked no different on the outside. It was in her eyes where the difference showed so profoundly. There was a maturity there now that had only begun to spark when he'd left her.

His fingers twitched where they were splayed across her thigh, the feel of her skin like warm velvet under his palm. He moved his hand up and cupped the curve of her hip. He tried to keep his movements slow and feather light so as not to wake her.

He thought perhaps he'd failed in that endeavor when a soft sigh escaped from her slightly parted lips. Lips that were still swollen from his earlier kisses. Her back arched into his chest when his hand moved over her breast. He paused there for a moment, both to let her settle back into sleep and to allow himself the delight of the feel of the perfect globe of flesh in his palm.

He watched in fascination and hunger as the skin of her nipple puckered and elongated the instant his thumb rolled across it.

Another moan and he cautioned himself about restraint. But then, perhaps there was only so much restraint a man can have, even a man like himself who prided himself in his control.

Her head moved and a curl of chocolate fell from her shoulder exposing the nape of her neck. His eyes were drawn there instantly. If Haley Marshall had one place on her body that made her crazy, that was it. He'd found it out the first time they were together, so many years ago, but it was important information, vital information, the kind of information a man never forgets about a woman. And as he recalled from a few hours earlier, she remembered all of his secret nooks and crannies as well.

He didn't even realize he was actually doing it until he felt her flesh against his teeth, her hair tickling his nose. He was simply remembering the way she tasted and then he was there, all manner of self control tossed away, all pretense of restraint taken by the wind that suddenly blew through the open window across from the bed.

He kept his fangs tightly in check, he had no plans to wound her. He simply grated his blunt human teeth across the flesh at the back of her neck and instantly her body tensed beside him as a flash of lightning lit up the sky. There was a surreality in the moment and he suddenly felt as if there was nothing in the world that could stop him from taking her again, right then.

She gasped out as his tongue swiped across her skin and immediately her hand was buried in his hair, holding him tightly against her.

She ground her hips into the aching erection that was pressing insistently against her, and it was his turn to gasp. It been more than a lifetime since he'd wanted a woman so badly it was painful. He had begun to think he would never feel anything that intensely again.

But this woman had stoked the fire that was slowing dying inside his soul. She'd made him feel things again. The heat of her had thawed the parts of him that the years had turned to ice.

She quickly turned in his arms and in an instant she held his face in her hands as her eyes bore into his, returning the needy hunger he knew she found there with a fiery passion all her own. In that one moment in time, it truly struck him how very much he loved the woman in his arms, and how very long he'd been searching for her.

Thunder rumbled in the sky as their lips met with such greediness it caused teeth to gnash. She groaned into his mouth and he felt the rumble of it all the way to his toes. Then she whispered his name against his lips in a lustful keen that drove him over the edge.

He flipped them suddenly and her thighs ground into his hips and she struggled for just an instant with finding her balance over him. But it was only an instant because with the next flash of lightning he was clenching his eyes closed as she slowly lowered herself onto him. The warmth of her body spread from where they were connected through every part of him and he felt more alive than he had in centuries.

Her hair surrounded him, falling over her shoulders and creating a curtain that blocked every thing else out of his existence. Her hands clutched at his shoulders as she used them for leverage as she began to rock her hips with a deliberate laziness that was driving him insane.

Colors flashed before his eyes as she leaned forward and slowly swirled her tongue across his taunt nipple. Then she dropped onto his chest and began to suck at his Adam's apple while her hips still continued to keep the carefully measured tempo she had set.

When her teeth gently nipped at the tender flesh of his throat, one of his previously discovered weakness, his hands went to her hips and he planted his feet firmly on the bed as he began to thrust his hips upwards in a much more forceful manner. She laid across his chest and let him take control for a time. Soft moans fell from both of their lips and he was suddenly grateful for the downpour that had begun outside, hoping it would hide their sounds from the rest of the house. He pushed into her as hard and as deeply as he could and she pushed back, giving him as much as he was taking. And again his love for her grew as he realized he would never have to hold back from her. He would never need to worry about her safety.

He gripped her shoulders tightly and held her against him with his arms crisscrossed over her back. Her taunt nipples pressed into his chest as she continued to nip eagerly at his neck.

He felt himself beginning to fall over the edge of desire, a feeling that began in the tip of his toes when suddenly with every bit of strength she had, Haley raised herself up, breaking free of his hold and forcing his hips back down to the bed.

She sat astride him, staring down at him with a mischievous look on her face that caused things in his stomach to tighten and clench. A slow smile moved across her lips as she braced herself with one hand on his quivering abs and tightened her inner muscles around his throbbing length. It felt as if a vise grip had a hold of him and his head fell back against the pillow while his eyes clenched shut. The sight of her above him and the feel of her around him was too much for him to take.  
Then slowly she began to move, this time grinding herself against him. She let out a moan every time his head rubbed against the sweetest spot deep inside her. He moved his hand between them and found her bundle of nerves and he swiped his finger across it in time with her movements.

Seconds later she was reduced to a quivering mass as she lost her balance and fell back over his chest while her body writhed in waves of pleasure.

He took the moment to flip them over. Then as she continued to throb around him, he began a brutal pace that left her with little to do besides hold on. Her legs wrapped around his hips as she returned his rhythm casting her hips upward in time with his downward strokes.

His lips covered hers, stealing the desperate sounding noises that were escaping her lips unrestrained now, while at the same time it muffled his own cries that he could no longer contain.

Then her hand moved to the back his head, her fingers nestled in his hair and she pulled his hair, dragging him away from her lips and filling his entire body with fire at the feel of the pain it caused.

"Bite me," she ground out between her teeth.

He hesitated for the briefest of moments. "I trust you. Please, Elijah, bite me." she urged.

He was gone the moment he felt her blood touch his tongue.

He lay still atop her for a time and he suddenly realized both of them were clutching each other, gasping and watching the storm rage outside the window. He tried to move, to slide into place beside her, but she refused to let him go. Her legs held his hips tightly while her arms grasped his shoulders in a death grip.

"Just don't move, yet,"she whispered in a hoarse voice.

He raised his head and brushed his lips over hers. "I'm too heavy. I'll crush you." He replied as he tried to move again.

Still she refused him, tightening her grip. "No, you are just heavy enough." She told him.

A look of profound loneliness flashed across her face and he blinked quickly at the sudden stinging in his eyes.

"I'm so sorry I left you alone for so long," he said.

Her arms clenched even harder. And her voice cracked although her lips turned up in a smile. "Just don't ever do it again."

He kissed her again, lingeringly, devotedly. "You have my word." He promised as he brushed a strand of hair from her eyes.

In time her grip on him lessened and he finally moved to the bed beside her as the sun began to move into the horizon chasing away the last remaining visages of the rain.

Haley raised her head from where it was resting on his chest and let out a disheartened sigh.

"What?" he asked. It was the first word either of them had spoken in hours. Neither had slept. They'd spent the rest of the night just holding each other as they watched the storm outside the window.

"We'll have to deal with the world soon." she answered.

"I suppose we will." he agreed.

Haley sat up beside him. One of them had at some point pulled the sheet up over them and she was now holding it over her breasts modestly.

He reached up and snatched it away from her, then he ran his hand along the curve of her breast. "But soon isn't now." He murmured as he rolled toward her and pressed his lips to her knee. She was sitting with her legs crossed and she batted him away when he made a move towards her inner thigh.

"We don't have time for that again," she smiled as she rebuffed him. "Do we have a plan for what to do about Hope?"

"What do you mean?" he asked while still peppering her leg with light brushes of his lips.

"She really expects her father to show up today." Haley said.

Elijah stopped kissing her suddenly. "She does?"

"Yes, she thinks Vincent is going to be afraid of her." she explained.

"What is she planning to do if he doesn't send Nicklaus home today?"

Haley's face darkened and he couldn't help be see the concern in her eyes. "I think she's planning on waging war with the New Orleans witches." She took a deep troubled breath. "And I think she's planning on going after Vincent and Marcel specifically."

Elijah got to his feet, worried over this new information. He began to gather his clothes. Then the smell of them hit his senses. He realized what he was doing and looked at Haley expectantly.

"How about a shower first? Then I have a clean suit in the closet all ready and waiting patiently for you."

"I love you," he smiled, his troubles momentarily forgotten she rose from the bed, took his hand and lead him to the private bathroom for the master bedroom.

"We're running so late, we should probably share the shower though. Wouldn't want to keep anyone waiting on us to get the day started."

He closed the space between them and encircled her waist with his arm. "No, that would indeed be terribly rude of us, wouldn't it?" He replied as he nibbled at her ear.


	9. Chapter 9

The hustle and bustle of a brand new day spread throughout the modest sized house that only a few scant moments before had been as quiet as a tomb.

Alarm clocks rang, doors opened, water ran and the smell of coffee and bacon wafted up the stairs, filling the entire house with its enticing scent.

Haley Marshall had never been a huge fan of mornings. In fact, she'd never really done mornings until she had a child. Then suddenly mornings were thrust upon her whether she wanted to do them or not. She glanced across the small island and once again her heart did a flip in her chest. It was a familiar sensation and one she relished. Every time her eyes caught sight of him, the flipping began. She hoped the feeling would never go away but she knew it would eventually. She planned to hold on to it for as long as she possibly could though. It had been so long since any part of her flipped or flopped.

Despite the lack of anything close to sleep, she felt revived, refreshed and she knew she had Elijah to thank for that. He gave her a smile over the rim of his coffee cup and she realized she was staring at him pretty unabashedly. But then, he was returning her stare with the same fervor, though he has giving an occasional nod or comment to Freya who was sitting on one side of him while Rebekah sat on the other side.

The two hadn't shown much emotion towards each other since Elijah and Kol's return but Haley noticed little things, like at the moment, their legs were touching. It was a silent reassurance of the others presence, the siblings way of reconnecting without words. It was sweet and it spoke to the depth of the connection they shared.

Freya, while just as much Elijah's sister was a newcomer to the Mikaelson family dynamic. Elijah and Rebekah had grown up together, lived together for hundreds of years, been through so much together.

Haley flipped the bacon that was frying in a pan in front of her and tried to ignore the feeling that there was something very important missing from the picture. She steeled herself against the Klaus sized hole and decided instead to put her energies towards believing they would get him back. Nothing felt quite right without his playful jibes and colorful rantings. He was missed, she could feel it from everyone.

She felt as if her mind was playing tricks on her for a moment when Hope bounced into the room and stopped right between Elijah and Rebekah. The resemblance she bared with her father was suddenly uncanny. And for the briefest instant, the picture looked right, if maybe still just a tad out of focus.

Behind her Tanner and Tabitha, Hope's two best friends filled into the table in the corner. It was the normal routine. At this point Haley felt as if she shared custody with Logan, splitting the time the twins and Hope spent together between their two houses. He feed them three days a week. Haley feed them three and on Sunday's in the summer the entire community got together by the lake and everybody feed each other, an all day outdoor potluck event that everyone in town participated in.

She made a mental note that she would have to prepare something the next day to take while at the same time wondering how Elijah was going to take to the experience. She almost laughed out loud over the thought of him in his suit by the lake while half dressed werewolves got drunk and splashed in the water all around him.

"So what are you planning to do today?" Haley asked as Hope reached in and snatched a piece of bacon from the plate.

"We're going to spend the day in the library, if that's okay?" Hope announced.

Elijah turned his head towards her with a quizzical smirk. "You're asking permission to spend a day in the middle of summer in the library? I'm quite sure no one could possibly have an objection to that."

Freya cleared her throat. "She means our library not the town's. And it's fine as long as you promise not to do any spellwork without talking to me first."

"You have a library?" Elijah asked.

"I have a collection. I've spent the last ten years searching out every book of magic I could find. And I managed to procure a descent amount of Cami's family's dark objects before we left New Orleans. If you tell me what you're hoping to find I might be able to point you in the right direction." Freya offered.

Hope shrugged. "I'm not sure what I'm looking for. I just want to look through them. I've never seen the spells as something I can do."

"There are some pretty advanced books in that collection. Maybe it would be better if I came with you. That way I can be right there if you have any questions."

"And to keep an eye on me and make sure I'm not doing magic?" Hope asked with an edge to her voice.

"No, I could teach you some things if you want. I just want to be there in case you find yourself in trouble."

"I think that would be best." Haley interjected.

"You think I need to be supervised. You don't trust me." Hope challenged her.

Haley took a deep breath. "I'm not sure when you decided it was okay for you to use that tone of voice with me, but I'm telling you now, you were wrong. So if you don't want to spend the day in your room, I suggest you drop it."

They glared at each other for a handful of heartbeats before Hope backed down and went to the table to sit with her friends.

The room settled back into its early rhythm with the new addition of three tween voices.

Then slowly, as happened every morning, the troops began to disperse. Rebekah was the first, offering a kiss to Elijah's cheek before she announced that she and Kol had shopping plans for the day and she disappeared up the stairs to rouse him. Freya and the kids followed soon after leaving Haley and Elijah sitting at the kitchen bar sipping coffee from matching cups. Haley had taken Rebekah's empty seat after putting the last of the morning dishes into the washer and flipping it on. It created a soft hum in the background as it went about it's task.

"Well," Elijah began as he surveyed the room. "That was very..." he paused to consider the best word, "domestic."

Haley laughed at his choice. "Yep, that's life around here. At times it boarders on 'The Brady Bunch'. I'm not even sure how it happened. One day I was driving a U-Haul full of coffins across the country and the next I'm living in a two story four bedroom house with a minivan in the garage and a PTA night marked on my calendar."

"You have a child. Settling down was inevitable." Elijah commented. "Although I am a bit surprised at the minivan."

She chuckled and he reached out and took her hand. "You have no idea how much I missed hearing that sound. It wasn't quite the same in the garden. It sounded so hollow in the dream world."

Haley sat her cup down and moved over to join him on his stool as she slid her arm around his back and kissed him. "That's because it was hollow because you weren't here with me." She told him feeling completely silly for admitting such a thing while at the same time wanting to explain to him how much his return meant to her.

Before he had a chance to respond a throat clearing the doorway turned their attention there.

Logan stood awkwardly shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "I didn't mean to interrupt." he said when they looked his way.

"No, it's fine." Haley told him jumping from Elijah's lap and returning to her own stool. "Logan and I usually have coffee in the mornings." she explained to Elijah. Then she introduced the two men. Elijah stood from his stool and took Logan's offered hand in a firm shake.

"Haley's told me a lot about you." Logan said. "I'm sure you have a lot of catching up to do. I just wanted to make sure you weren't drinking alone." He teased her with a chuckle.

"Don't be silly. There's still plenty of coffee. I insist you stay." Elijah told him. "I don't want my return to interfere with your routine."

"So you'll be coming to the lake tomorrow then?" Logan asked as he pulled a mug from the cabinet and went about making his cup in a familiar way that raised the hackles on the back of Elijah's neck just slightly.

Haley squeezed his hand in reassurance as if she had somehow sensed his annoyance. "We're all coming. I want everyone to met Elijah and Kol."

"Does that mean you'll be staying around for a while longer?"

"It means I'm not sure what our plans are at the moment." Haley said and Elijah saw the sudden tiredness on her face. Once again the guilt of leaving her washed over him. "I just need to breath and regroup for a minute."

Logan took a chair at the table and Elijah and Haley turned their backs to the bar to face him. "What about the upcoming semester? Should I start taking applications? I mean we'd hate to lose you but I know you have bigger things to do than being a guidance councilor. I'm sure you'll be looking to return to New Orleans before long."

Haley thought about that for a minute. "I suppose you should. Now that we have most of the family back, we have to find Klaus."

"The two things don't have to be exclusive." Elijah put in. "You don't have to move back to New Orleans to rescue Klaus."

"Klaus is not going to leave New Orleans. It's his home. It's your home and Rebekah's. Of course we're going back to New Orleans. Whether she remembers it or not, it's Hope's home as well." Haley commented. "The question is when. We'll need a plan before we walk into Vincent's territory and take it back."

"The black claw clan is with you as far as the fight goes, but this is our home. After the battle, this is where we belong." Logan announced.

"I'm not asking you to come with us to New Orleans, Logan. Your pack has done enough for us. You can't send your people into a battle that has nothing to do with them." Haley replied.

Logan held out his hand. "I'm just saying, we're here if you need us." He drained his cup and took it over to the sink. "I'm going to get out of here and let you enjoy your Saturday afternoon. Send my brats home if they cause any trouble."

"It's way more likely that my brat will be trouble causing. Your brats are the ones trying to talk her out it." Haley laughed.

Elijah turned to her as soon as he heard the front door closed behind him. "I'm sorry." he said, quietly, solemnly as he took her hand and kissed her knuckles.

"For what?" she asked with raised eyebrows.

"Our return is going to completely upset the life you've built for yourself." he replied.

"It was a temporary life and everybody knew that."

"But you like it here. You're happy here." he argued.

Haley let out a frustrated sound and pulled her hand out of his letting it come to rest on her hip. "Really, Elijah? Would you please just get down from your cross? I'll be happy in New Orleans. I'll be a hundred times more happy in New Orleans because I would gladly give up everything I have here to have you and Klaus and even Kol back in our lives."

He looked down sheepishly. "I apologize. It seems I've felt guilt about everything for so long it's hard to stop. Maybe it's just hard for me to believe that I make you as happy as you say that I do."

She raised his face to hers and kissed him. "I understand how hard this is to believe, but it's very real. I love you. You love me. And we can be together. Nothing is stopping us. We have nothing to be feel guilty about anymore."

He kissed her again and once more she moved into his lap as he pulled her closer.

"Excuse us." Rebekah said as she breezed into the room and moved to the coffee pot.

Kol shuffled in behind her and gave the room a lazy wave before heading sleepily to the table, Haley returned to her stool.

Rebekah placed a full cup of coffee in front of him before sitting down. "I didn't believe it was possible but it seems Kol is worse than you are without coffee, Haley."

Elijah chuckled. "I think that looks worse than a simple caffeine deficiency. That looks like a hang over."

"Hey, brother, you indulged yourself in the things you loved last night. I just did the same." Kol said around his cup.

Elijah smiled slyly and took hold of Haley's hand. "I suppose you have a point."

Elijah didn't notice the horrified look on Haley's face. But Rebekah did because she smiled at her in reassurance. " Relax, Mom. Before Freya went to bed she put a sound poof spell around your room. No one heard anything. You can look your daughter in the face still. But what a bloody interesting night it must have been to elicit that reaction." She shirked.

"Didn't you say you were going shopping?" Haley asked pointedly changing the subject.

"Yes, our boys need men things. We are going to get some."

"Men things?" Haley asked.

"Yeah, you know, razors, shaving cream... men things."

Elijah rubbed his hand across the stubble that was already appearing on his check. "I would appreciate that. And there is the fact that I smell like a flower garden. That's a tad distracting."

They both rose and headed out the garage door with a wave and a 'see you later'.

Haley looked around to see to it that they were once again alone. Then without preamble this time, she slid over into Elijah's lap to resume kissing him.

Something breaking upstairs startled them apart this time and before they had time to react further Hope was in the doorway.

"Come quick. It's Aunt Freya!"


	10. Chapter 10

"I just picked up this," Hope told them as she held up a strange symbol made of tarnished silver. "I didn't do anything with it. I just picked it up and she stopped talking and started staring off into space."

Freya was indeed, sitting on a stool behind her altar, motionless, staring blankly at nothing.

Elijah went to her and touched her shoulder. As soon as he made contact he was pushed away by an invisible force that sent him reeling backwards.

Haley scanned the altar and saw the large quartz crystal Freya had clutched in her right hand. Her grasp on the object so tight her knuckles were white.

"What was she saying when you picked that up?" Haley asked.

"She was explaining how to do a locator spell." Hope answered. "She picked up that crystal and said she used that to amplify her power. Then she started chanting over the map. That's when I picked this up and suddenly she stopped."

Elijah walked around his sister, carefully gauging her. "Put it down," he said, quietly.

Hope returned the talisman to the place she got it to no effect.

"I don't think you did this, Sweetheart." He reassured Hope. He moved closer to the altar and peered down at the map spread out across it's marble top. "I think she's doing this herself. Look at the map."

Two dark spots had began to form on the map. One of them, a large one was forming over their current location. Another one, fainter yet no less visible appeared over New Orleans. Then as they watched, the larger spot began to separate with a portion moving away from their location.

"What is that?" Haley asked as she leaned in.

"I believe that is a locator spell. She's used her own blood and it's showing us here." He indicated the spot over their location. "This one," the one separating away from them, "is Rebekah and Kol." Then he pointed to the last one, the one in New Orleans. "This one must be Nicklaus."

"Hope, get the map of New Orleans. For whatever reason, Vincent isn't cloaking Nicklaus. We should be able to tell exactly where he is."

Hope grabbed the map and handed it to her uncle, who carefully spread it out over the larger map. Just as they suspected, moments later, a pool began to form over a spot in a cemetery in the French Quarter.

"That's it." Hope exclaimed gleefully. "That's where my father is."

Elijah looked up and caught Haley's eye. "I think she's right." He grabbed a marker and drew a circle around the spot. Then he carefully, slowly slid the crystal from Freya's grasp.

She immediately pulled in a gasping breath as her shoulders slumped in fatigue. "Did it work?" she asked weakly.

"I believe it did." Elijah told her as he offered a hand to steady her. "I think we found where Vincent and Marcellus are keeping Nicklaus."

"The question is why did the locator spell work now. It hasn't worked in ten years, now all of a sudden, it does." Haley questioned. "It seems a little convenient."

Freya gave a humorless smile. "No, Vincent is calling Hope out. He's letting her know exactly where her father is, daring her to come and get him."

"I'm fine with that. Let's go get him." Hope answered with her chin raised defiantly.

Elijah let out a troubled sigh. "You remind me of another very young, very powerful witch I once knew."

Haley looked her daughter over and suddenly the resemblance was uncanny. "Davina," she replied quietly.

Freya glanced at her niece for a moment before looking away.

"Who is Davina?" Hope asked.

"The girl who's death started this whole thing." Elijah answered in a heavy tone.

"What happened to her? Did she try to do a spell that was too powerful? Because that isn't going to happen to me. I know how much power is too much."

"Davina died because Elijah and I sacrificed her to stop a beast just like Marcel. We thought we were saving the world." Freya explained.

Then she turned to Hope and leveled her with a severe gaze. "But let me assure you, there were many times when Davina took on more power than she could handle and the results did not work in her favor. Don't pretend that you know your limits. You've been a witch for all of a day. You have no idea what you are and are not capable of and the kind of boosting your displaying right now is exactly what Vincent is hoping for. It will get you killed."

"You're only saying that to scare me. You're jealous because you know I'm stronger than you." Hope countered.

"Hope!" Haley exclaimed, taking a step towards her daughter. "Apologize to your Aunt right now. Then you can go to your room while we decided what to do about your father."

"This is my fight. He's my father. I'm going to save him. I'm going to do it because you all can't." Hope insisted. "I'm not going anywhere and you can't make me."

"This is not your fight. It is all of ours as a family and until you can conduct yourself like an adult that deserves to be part of the conversation, I believe your mother is right."

Then she was just suddenly gone, as if a specter had grabbed her and snatched her away to another diminution. It took Haley a moment to realize that Elijah was gone as well. But before she had a chance to move, she heard a door down the hall shutting forcefully. And another moment later he was back, straightening his tie and tugging his jacket back into place.

"I'm sorry if I stepped out of line, but I felt she really needed to understand that we most certainly could make her do what we tell her to do." He told her. "I fear that all this new power is going to her head."

"Freya, can you please put a barrier spell on her room?" Haley asked her. Then she turned to Elijah with a reassuring smile. "You didn't step out of line. You did exactly what I was about to do. And honestly it's nice to have to the backup."

"She most definitely is Nicklaus' child." He said, with a shake of his head.

"This isn't like her." Haley said in Hope's defense. "She's never been defiant and willful."

"Of course it isn't like her. But in the last twenty-four hours not only has she been bombarded with all of the power of her witch, she's also obtained all the aggression of her wolf. She just needs time."

Tabitha stepped forward out of the corner of the room where she and her brother had been doing their best to stay out of the way. "I think we should probably be going." she said, quietly as if she were afraid of alerting everyone to their presence.

"I'm sorry, you guys." Haley smiled at the young girl. "I hate that you got caught up in all the drama."

"It's okay," Tanner answered from beside his sister. "I remember when I first turned. All I wanted to do was rip everyone's head off. Freya's right. She just needs some time to adjust."

"You're a smart kid, Tanner. I'm sorry your day got ruined."

"There's plenty for us to do. Everyone is doing clean up duty after last night anyway. The only reason we weren't recruited was because Dad thought we might be able to help more by staying with Hope." Tabitha said before the two left.

"We should be out there, too." Haley commented after they were gone. "After all, it was our little darling that caused the damage."

"Are we sure we shouldn't be putting the bracelet back on our little darling?" Freya asked.

Haley sighed. "I think all that will do is cause her to hate us even more. It's too late to bind her power. We have to let her calm down. Then we can start helping her deal with it. For now, I think we should concentrate on making a plan to go get Klaus, a plan that doesn't include my eleven year old."

Elijah moved over to her and took her hand. "Actually, right now, I think it would be best for us to garner some good will among the people who are so graciously protecting us by helping them clean up Hope's mess. When Rebekah and Kol get back we can start working on a plan."

Haley hadn't realized how much it would help her get her mind off things until she was out in the hot sun, elbows deep in the manual labor of cleaning up the neighborhood. It didn't hurt that not far from her, Elijah was also amerced in the task. Jacket off, shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, she couldn't help but feel a bit distracted every time she glanced his way and watched as his muscles rippled under the light blue dress shirt.

It was ridiculous. She knew that. There was far too much going on for her to let herself get lost in her hormones. But try as she might she couldn't seem to stop herself. Her mind should have been on her daughter and thinking about how best to help her. Instead it insistently kept bringing up images of her ripping that shirt off his back and tasting the delectable skin it was hiding. Suddenly, she hated that shirt, wishing it away with everything thing inside her so she could watch the sweat glistening off the light splattering of hair that she knew covered his pecks and lead to a trail that disappeared into the snug fitting dark gray dress pants.

"You okay?" Logan asked from directly beside her. She hadn't even noticed him come up to her. "You've been awful quiet today." Then he followed her gaze and laughed out loud.

"I'm fine." she said, quickly as she dragged her eyes away from the object of her affection. "What's so funny?"

"You are in trouble." Logan teased. "That's a dangerous look in your eye."

"I'm not in trouble." She told him as she sent an elbow playfully into his ribs. "I'm in love. There is a difference."

"Is there?" he asked, equally as playfully as he dodged her flying appendage. "I heard there was some trouble earlier with Hope."

"We handled it." She said, her eyes once again on Elijah, as she bent to retrieve a fallen tree branch. "She's just a little overwhelmed right now."

Logan laughed as he looked around at the aftermath of the storm she'd conjured the night before. "You think? Must be nice not having to deal with it all on your own anymore though."

Haley shook her head immediately. "I haven't been all on my own since Hope was four. I've had Rebekah and Freya."

"Not really the same though, is it? I miss that feeling of not being alone." He mused as he picked up the other end of the branch she was lifting and helped her move it to the side of the yard where they were gathering all the wood.

"I really haven't given myself that much time to think about it. I'm trying to concentrate on Hope right now." she lied.

Logan laughed again. "I believe you were thinking about it when I came up just now. And you know what? That's okay. You're going through a huge change in your life right now, too. Hope isn't the only one. In the six years I've known you I've never seen you look at anyone that way. You went from single to whatever this is in an instant." He helped her fling the heavy branch onto the pile.

"But I didn't." Haley replied wiping her hands on the legs of her jeans before heading off for another piece of broken tree. "I haven't been single in twelve years. Elijah has always been with me."

"Being with you in your dreams and being close enough to reach out and touch whenever you want are two different things."

"Hope is my priority." Haley insisted.

Logan grabbed up a handful of trash and tossed into a barrel that had been set up for that purpose. "Of course she is and she should be, but you need to make time for you and don't feel guilty for feeling happy. There will never be a perfect time. Life always has a way of giving you other things to think about. You have to give yourself permission to be happy, Haley. As long as I've known you, you've been laser-focused on getting your family back together. Now it is, or at least it mostly is. Let yourself enjoy that for a minute. The world isn't going to fall apart."

A suddenly clap of thunder turned several heads towards the sky. Elijah caught Haley's eye and they both turned to look at the upstairs window of Hope's room. Finding it empty, Haley heaved a sigh of relief. Then the sky opened up overhead and the rain began to pour.

"Weather said it might rain today. Looks like they were right." Logan yelled over the deluge. "Get inside. You're getting soaked."

Haley turned towards her house just as Elijah appeared by her side. "This isn't-" he asked, but Haley cut him off with a shake of her head.

"No, not Hope. Logan said it was in the forecast and we get sudden showers like this around this time of year," she assured him.

Haley suddenly realized they were alone standing in the middle of the yard across the street from their house. Elijah moved in closer to her and peeled a strand of hair from her cheek that was stuck there by the water.

"We should get inside," she said quietly even as her eyes scanned down to his chest. The light blue dress shirt was now nearly transparent and it was plastered across his chest.

She moved her eyes back to his face and realized that his eyes were on her chest as well. She could feel her purple t-shirt clinging to her own skin.

"Yes, we should." Elijah muttered as he suddenly lifted her into his arms and moved them with vampire speed to their front porch. He paused only long enough for her to open the front door. Then he didn't stop until they were upstairs in her room.

His head fell to her neck and she could feel his breath brush over her skin when he whispered, "I wonder if the spell is still up around this room."

She buried her hand in his hair and pressed his lips to her flesh. "We'll just have to try to be quiet." She told him as she let her other hand moved across his shoulder and along the rippling muscle of his bicep.

"You make that impossible," he said as he nipped his way across her collarbone, following the v-neckline of her shirt. Then he grabbed the material and pulled it up and over her head, letting in land in a bundle at their feet.

"I guess we'll just have to hope it's still there then." Haley smiled at him as her fingers went to work on the buttons of his shirt.

The rest of their rain-soaked clothing took some effort but it was well worth it as they took turns divesting each other of one garment after another until they were both bare. Once done, Haley moved onto the bed and held her hand out, beckoning him to join her.

He moved over her with the grace of a jungle cat, his long, lean body stretching out to cover hers.

Haley moved her legs around his narrow hips, cradling him to her, holding him in place as he leaned in to kiss her. It was a soft, gentle kiss and not at all what she wanted from him. Her hand went to his hair, fingers entangling in the soft, brown strands as she tried to bring him in closer and deepen the kiss.

Still he held himself just out of her reach and smiled down at her. "It occurs to me that I have yet to have a chance to truly enjoy you. I intend to rectify that right now. I plan to spend the rest of the day getting to know each and every part of you," he whispered in her ear before pulling the lobe between his lips and sucking on it intently. "The world and all its problems can wait. Let's take this afternoon to savor what we've both hungered for, for so long."

He spent the next hours playing her body as if he were a master and she was his favorite instrument. Leaving no place undiscovered, no part of her untouched, he worshiped every inch of her skin with his hands and his lips.

Then it was her turn and she gave as good as she got. For her, it was a first, the slow, meticulous side of lovemaking. Always before it had been about release, the end game. He showed her a new way, a way forged in love and tenderness. She showed her how to love the journey, not just the destination.

As twilight began to take hold outside the window she fell into him and watched as the sweet peacefulness of sleep at last overtook him, leaving a quiet, satisfied smile on his lips. She rested her head of his chest and soon she joined him there.


	11. Chapter 11

"So, now that we know where Nicklaus is, let's go get him." Kol said from his position on the sofa with Rebekah and Freya on either side of him.

It was a round table discussion, all of them crowded around the oval shaped coffee table that sat in the center of the living room set. Elijah and Haley took up the love set opposite the sofa and Logan, along with his right-hand woman, Dinah sat in chairs to either side. Haley still wasn't convinced they should be in on the conversation. Logan insisted his pack was there to help them and he wasn't taking no for an answer.

"You just want us to walk back into New Orleans like we own the place and take Nicklaus back just like that?" Rebekah asked, doubtfully. "It's clearly a trap. We haven't been able to locate him in ten years. Now all of a sudden, right after Hope's attack on the witches, he's appears on our map. Vincent is calling Hope out."

"But he doesn't know that the rest of you are awake. We aren't even sure he knows about Rebekah and Freya being awake. That gives you the advantage, right?" Logan put in.

"And since Hope's blood is the cure for Marcellus' poison bite, that takes that rather large advantage away from them." Freya added.

"That means you'll have to take me with you when you go to get my father." Hope announced from the bottom of the staircase.

Haley spun towards her immediately. "You are supposed to be in your room."

"Yeah, well, I think I should be part of this conversation," she said, walking over and perching herself on the arm of the love seat next to Elijah.

"I disagree." Haley countered.

Hope sighed as if she were taking a moment to compose herself before she continued. "I'll admit that my behavior earlier was uncalled for and out of line, which is why I stayed in my room all day. I could've come out, but I didn't because you were right. I was being a brat. But I'm not now and besides you wouldn't even know where to find him if it weren't for me and I'm the biggest tool you have. You can't leave me behind."

Haley eyed her daughter carefully, considering her words. "Rebekah is right. This is a trap, a trap designed to lure you into New Orleans. Bringing you with us isn't a good idea."

"But you need me in case one of you gets bitten again." Hope protested.

"We just need some of your blood for that. We don't have to put you in danger." Her mother countered quickly.

"Okay, but like it or not, I'm stronger than Freya. I'm probably the strongest person here." When Haley raised her eyebrows at that, Hope held out her hand. "That's not my ego talking. I'm not bolstering. It's a fact."

Kol's eyes went to Haley. "Bolstering? How old is she again?"

Haley nodded her head. "Eleven. She's just really smart."

Hope beamed pridefully. "That's right. I'm really strong and really smart. You have to take me with you."

Elijah shifted so he could better see his niece. "Not that I am not extremely proud, but an advanced vocabulary won't win you anything in a fight with Vincent. These people want you dead. It would be reckless of us to put you in danger like that if it can be avoided."

"And when you figure out that it can't be?" she asked.

"Then we will see to it that you are in the least amount of danger possible." he answered. "Let's not forget why you bare your name. You are our Hope. Keeping you safe takes precedence over everything else."

"Including rescuing my father from the years of torture he's enduing?" she countered, quickly.

"Absolutely, and if Nicklaus had a voice in this discussion, he would say the same thing."

All of the Mikaelson siblings as well as Haley nodded their agreement to that statement.

"Klaus would kill me if I let you walk into New Orleans like this just to get him. He would never forgive any of us if we put you in harm's way." Haley said.

Kol grimaced. "Speaking as someone who's endued the blunt of my brother's discord, I am not willing to relive the experience."

"Neither am I." Rebekah added.

"So you are going to leave me here while you go off to fight?" Hope said, quietly as if she knew she were defeated.

Haley shook her head. "We haven't made any plans yet. I'm not sure where you fit in. But if we do decide that we need you, one or more of us will be with you all the time and you have to do exactly as we say. These kind of things always rely on everyone doing their part and following the plan. If you step out of line you could put yourself or one of us in danger. You have to understand that before we agree to anything."

Hope nodded, but didn't say anything.

"I think the first thing we need to do is get some intelligence on what is happening in New Orleans. Rumors are flying all over the place. Some say, Marcellus is no longer in charge. They say Vincent has him locked away somewhere and he's taken over the quarter. Others say Marcellus is running the quarter with Vincent. And some say that the potion that Marcellus consumed to become one of us has driven him insane. We need to know exactly what is happening before we go bursting in there." Freya explained.

"How do you propose to do that? Wolves still aren't welcome in the quarter so we can't send in one of the pack undercover. All of us are pretty recognizable, plus we don't want anyone to know we aren't still sleeping. We're on the Bloody outside looking in. It's hard to get much information from here." Rebekah asked.

"We could get some information from inside." Haley offered.

"You know someone in New Orleans who would be willing to help us?"

"That depends on whether he's forgiven us or not."

Rebekah huffed. "And what transgression would we be needing forgiveness for this time?"

Haley sighed and quickly muttered, "Davina."

Elijah turned to her hastily. "Are you thinking about Josh?" Haley nodded in answer. "You can't believe that we would even sit in the same room with Freya and I. I seriously doubt he would betray his maker for us."

"I think if we can get him here, we can talk to him. I think we might be able to get him on our side. He was never very fond of Vincent and if Marcel has gone insane, he'd want to help him. Hope's blood might be able to do that."

"And it's a sure bet that he'll know exactly what's going on with Marcel." Freya said.

"Are you proposing helping Marcellus if he has gone insane?" Kol asked. "He's the reason all this happened. He's the reason Nicklaus is where he is. He's the reason we were bitten. I'm not going to help him. I'm going to figure out how to kill him."

Elijah turned to him sharply. "Actually, we are the reason all this happened. Freya and I are entirely responsible for the way things played out in New Orleans. Marcellus would never have betrayed us if he weren't given a proper reason for it." He took Hope's hand. "I can't say I'd behave any differently if he took something as precious from me."

Kol narrowed his eyes dangerously at his brother. "No one knows better than I what losing something as precious as Davina can do to a man. But Marcellus turned himself into a monster and monsters can't be allowed to just run lose, particularly when they are on a warpath against this family." He lowered his voice. "Remember Brother, family above all else."

"After ten years of enforced family therapy in that garden you'd think you two would have worked through your collective shit by now." Rebekah interjected, putting herself directly in between the two brothers.

"We have." Kol said, in a much lighter voice. "I just felt like I needed to remind everyone that Marcellus wasn't the only one that lost Davina that day."

"We all lost Davina that day because it was the only way to save everyone." Freya interjected.

Kol turned to her slowly. "And yet, it didn't save anyone, now did it?"

"It worked on Lucian. If we hadn't done what we did we'd have two monsters running around with grudges against this family."

"And yet," Kol repeated with hostility lacing his voice. "If you hadn't sacrificed the woman I loved, you probably wouldn't be dealing with Marcellus now at all. And," he paused, wet his lips and took a deep breath as if he were about to say something he'd been holding in for awhile. "I believe that if the only way to defeat Lucian had been to sacrifice Rebekah or you or even Haley, it wouldn't even have been considered as an option." He shifted. "Davina was expendable because as far as the rest of you were concerned she wasn't one of us. Family above all else."

"Kol, you know that isn't true," Freya said resting her hand on his leg.

Kol crossed his arms over his chest and ignored her hand. "Really? I didn't see you offering yourself up as a sacrifice. And even if you had, big Brother would never have allowed such a thing."

"What I would and would not have done in that situation is a question we will never have the answer to. I reacted to the situation I was in. I've spent ten years apologizing and explaining my decision. I have no intention of spending the rest of eternity doing that. Rest assured, little Brother, you aren't the only one who has ever lost someone because she wasn't, 'one of us'. In fact I'd wager to say that I have lost more to this family than you have ever had." Elijah told him with an eerie, deadly calmness.

"That would be because you spent all your time playing Nicklaus' faithful lap dog while the rest of us lay in boxes in your basements." Kol replied, on his feet now, staring down at Elijah menacingly.

Elijah lifted his eyes slowly to Kol's face, then he let his vision drift to where Hope was resting at his side, then he returned to Kol. There was a tension in the room that rippled through the air as the two stared at each other.

A sudden slamming of all the doors in the house made even the aged vampires jump in startled surprise.

All eyes in the room landed immediately on Hope.

She just shrugged and muttered, "Sorry."

"Perhaps we could find a better time and place to rehash this terribly old conversation," Elijah offered, coming back to Kol.

"It's okay. I've read all your journals, Uncle Elijah. I know every terrible thing my father ever did." Hope said.

Elijah turned to Haley with disapproval all over his face. "I assumed you would have monitored which ones she was allowed to read."

She chuckled out loud. "If I had only let her read the ones that didn't show Klaus' bad side, she wouldn't have been able to read any of them." She shook her head. "No, I let her read them all. I didn't want her to be blindsided later on. It's not like she wasn't going to learn exactly who her father was. But she also read about how it tore his heart out to send her away when she was a baby. She also understands that her safety was the reason he gave himself over to Marcel. She's read about everything he's done for her. She knows that he's done nothing since the day she was born but try to be a better man for her."

Hope nodded in response. "I know all about him."

Elijah gave Hope a smile, then turned back to Kol sharply. "Well, in that case, let me say for what must be the hundredth time, I will not take responsibility for what Nicklaus did to you."

"You might not have put the daggers in our hearts but you sure as hell didn't take them out either." Kol returned.

Elijah nodded in acknowledgment. "No, I didn't. I decided that someone needed to be around to save the world from Nicklaus. I have spent centuries doing my best to be his voice of reason, his conscience. If I hadn't who knows what he would have become."

Logan cleared his throat, bringing everyone's attention to him. "I'm sorry, I just felt as if we were maybe straying a touch off topic. I thought we were here to make a plan to rescue this guy."

Haley set up a little straighter. "That's right. Because this conversation would be so much better if he could be a part of it, too." she said sarcastically.

Rebekah grabbed Kol's hand and pulled him back to the seat beside her. "Haley is right. Stow your shit. We have to figure out how to get him back. Family arguments are always better when Nick is around."


	12. Chapter 12

The meeting of minds had only broken up a few hours before. After a long day of planning and discussing, re-planning and re-discussing, a strategy had finally been devised and approved by everyone. Those present had retreated to rest up for the risky venture they were about to set upon.

The peaceful respite was short lived as a clatter of voices on the lawn and the front door slamming brought them all quickly alert once more.

Moments later, Elijah and Haley were both up and dressed, looking more or less presentable as they made their way out into the hallway. They found Hope standing in her doorway as if she were asking permission to come along. With a nod from her mother, she joined them on the stairs.

"Witches!" Rebekah was yelling animatedly as they stepped into the room.

Logan was at the front door, his hair disheveled. "They came out of nowhere. They attacked three of my guys and now they've set up some kind of barricade around the edge of the neighborhood. No one can get in or out."

Freya came up behind the trio that had just stepped off the stairs and skirted her way around them. "I don't know who they are but they aren't New Orleans witches. The magic feels completely different."

"So let's go out and meet them." Kol suggested. "Find out who they are and what they want."

Before they could gather themselves and head out, a knock on the door brought the room to silence.

Being closest, Logan opened the door and was immediately flung back out of the way.

"We seek audience with the Mikaelson witch that resides in this place." The tall, wafer thin, white haired, elderly woman said from the doorway. She raised her face as if to scan the room, but only empty holes remained where her eyes should have been.

Haley saw Elijah reach out and pull Hope in behind him, securing her safely between the being and himself. Haley took a step forward putting herself in front of them both. Elijah's hand came to her waist, resting there reassuringly.

Freya cleared her throat and stepped forward confidently. "I'm the Mikaelson witch," she announced.

"Come closer, Child." the old woman beckoned with a gnarled finger.

Freya stepped up to the doorstep. The old woman leaned in, careful not to step across the jamb, and sniffed the air around the increasingly nervous witch. "No, you are close to the one we seek, but you are not the one. Where is the witch who is more than a witch? The witch who holds the trio of power within her vessel?"

"What is it that you want with her?" Freya asked, holding her ground.

The old witch threw her head back and let out a cackle. "We wish her no harm. She is the answer we have been seeking for centuries. She is the embodiment of all, the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone born of Earth."

Freya stepped back and turned towards where Hope was peaking out around her Uncle's shoulder. She caught Haley's eye and the two exchanged an uncertain look.

"Well, your savior has a bedtime in this house and I think it's a little late for company." Rebekah said coming to stand beside Freya. "Take yourself and your flock of witches and go away."

The old woman look directly at her and began to hum, the sound sent Rebekah stumbling back with an unseen force.

"Stop!" Hope shouted, coming out from behind Elijah and stepping up to her mother's side.

"Ah, there she is. There is the one who will save us." The woman told them.

Hope started to take another step forward, but Elijah quickly grabbed her upper arm, holding her in place.

"We will grant you audience with the Mikaelson witch, but in exchange you must take down your barrier and allow those who choose to pass unmolested." Elijah said, coming forward and this time putting both Haley and Hope firmly behind him.

The witch considered his words for a moment before turning around and making a gesture with her hands. "Your request is granted. The barrier is no more. Now, send out the young one. We wish to taste her power."

"Not gonna happen." Kol announced from where he had caught Rebekah when she stumbled backwards.

The witch turned her unseeing eyes towards him. Then she began to hum so softly it was nearly inaudible. Slowly Freya begin to rise in the air, clutching at her throat as if something was strangling her.

"You dare to go back on your word with me!" the witch said in a low threatening voice.

"I dare to tell you there will be no tasting of my niece." Kol answered defiantly.

Another swipe of her hand sent Freya tumbling to the ground and right into Kol, sending him to the floor as well. "Stupid boy, we bare no ill against the young one. She will come to no harm at our hands. On this you have my word."

"Then what is it that you want from her?" Haley asked.

"Merely to bask in the power of the Triple Goddess born of flesh." The woman answered.

Elijah took a step closer to the woman. "I have your word, no harm will come to her or those she protects?"

The woman sniffed at the air again as if trying to obtain his scent. Elijah took another step, allowing her better access. "Yes, noble Elijah Mikaelson, my word is my bond and you have it already. She is safe with us as are her companions. So long as no hand is raised against us, we shall raise no hand against you."

Elijah turned to Haley and gave her a nod. Haley nodded in return.

"The one who borne you agrees, come closer, Child. Let us bathe in the strength of your might." the woman said, once again beckoning Hope forward with a sweep of her hand.

Hope grabbed hold of Haley's hand, bringing her along as she stepped up to the old woman.

Suddenly, as Hope stepped up beside Elijah a glow of blue light began to emit from her body like a halo. It surrounded the old woman completely while Elijah was thrown backwards from it as if an unseen hand had knocked him away. He landed on the floor as the force of the impact slammed him against the door causing it to swing wide open.

When the light receded the old woman was gone and standing in her place was a woman, no older than Haley with cascading red hair that fell to her waist in a ripple of waves. She raised a hand to her face, now full and free of wrinkles and examined it with newly formed eyes the shade of emeralds.

"What we sensed was indeed true, then." The woman said in amazement. "The Morrigan does walk amongst us once again. Praise be to Dagda." She looked down at the stunned vampire who was still trying to get his feet back under him, while a look of fury covered his face. "Do not blame us, Elijah Mikaelson. It was not us who attacked you. It was the power of life possessed by your niece that repelled your undead nature away."

"But I'm a vampire." Hope said as she held her hand out for Elijah. He took it and climbed back to his feet, dusting himself off and straightening his jacket.

The witch reached a tentative hand, no longer twisted and gnarled, out towards Hope. Hope hesitated for a fraction of a second before taking another step closer and allowing the woman to touch her cheek.

"You are indeed but only in part and the part of you that is alive is far greater than the part of you that is not." The woman told her.

Hope stepped back out of her reach again. "I don't understand."

"She's saying that the parts of you that are witch and wolf supersede the part of you that is vampire. Your other parts are stronger." Elijah explained. "Like in math class, two-thirds is greater than one."

"Come now, Child, my sister and brother are as eager as I to meet The Morrigan." The woman insisted.

"Wait a minute. Who the hell are you?" Freya asked. "We aren't letting Hope go out there without knowing exactly who it is she's letting bathe in the strength of her might, right?"

"Maybe she's right." Haley said, pulling Hope back towards her. "We have no idea who you are."

"We are the bardic grove of ravens, keepers of the ancient knowledge and tellers of the tales of the ages. My name is Ingrid. I am the first of our order to foretell the coming of the Triple Goddess. I promise you, we are of no threat to you. We are storytellers, nothing more."

"Tell that to both my sisters that you've bounced around here tonight." Kol put in. "I don't like this. Freya's right. We have no idea who these people are. They might not be a threat to us but that doesn't mean they aren't a threat to someone and how can we be sure it's someone we want threatened."

"We are not a threat to anyone. Our purpose is merely to record events, not participate in them." Ingrid answered.

"How many of you are there?" Logan spoke up for the first time since being sent spiraling with the opening of the door.

"We are merely three in number. My brother and sister stand at the boundary of your territory awaiting my word before they venture closer." Ingrid told them.

"You attacked our people," he argued.

Ingrid shook her head. "It was us who were attacked. We merely defended ourselves and the barrier that held you here was only meant to stop the Morrigan from leaving before we had a chance to seek her out."

"There are only three of you?" Elijah asked.

"Just my brother, Collin, my sister, Bridget and I. No more." She glanced over her shoulder as several werewolves began to approach the house. "Our magic is meant purely as a defense. Power is not our goal. It is not our purpose. We have simply been guided here to record the coming of our Goddess."

Elijah stepped between the woman and Haley and Hope. "Summon your brother and sister here to this house. They may have their audience but it will be on our terms. The Morrigan will see them in a hour's time.

Ingrid bowed her head in a solemn nod. "Your terms are acceptable, Elijah Mikaelson. We will return at the appointed time."

The woman turned as if to walk away but the wolves in the yard closed in on the porch, preventing her retreat.

"Let her pass." Logan called from over Elijah's shoulder. "and leave her and her people alone unless they step out of line."

Elijah closed the door after watching the woman leave the yard and step out into the darkness of the night. Then he turned to Hope and his sister.

"Tell me you can put together some kind of spell that will dampen their magic while they're inside the house." He besieged them.

"I'm already working on a plan." Freya nodded having already anticipated his request.


	13. Chapter 13

Freya gave her eldest brother a nod as she stepped off the last step of the staircase. All the preparations had been taken care of. Everything was in place and everyone had a role to play.

Elijah cast his eyes towards the mirror over the table that set just inside the door and straightened his tie. It was clear that this so called, 'Bardic grove of Ravens', had some power behind it. There was something there if they could cast a barrier around the town with only three members. That made Elijah nervous. He didn't like power he didn't understand. He liked it less when his niece was in the middle of it.

If he were being completely honest with himself, Hope, herself made him a little nervous. There was just so much power in that far-too-young package. How could she possibly learn to deal with what was inside her while trying to navigate adolescence at the same time? He certainly did not envy the first boy that breaks her heart. He didn't especially relish cleaning up the aftermath of it either.

The only answer was that Hope had to learn control. It was the only way she would ever be able to handle all the changes she was going through. But control and new wolves rarely occupied the same vessel. Add to that the fact that she was perhaps the strongest witch he'd encountered since his mother and it was a recipe for disaster.

He pushed those thoughts aside, packing them into a neat, tidy, little box in his mind, a box he would take out later and examine more closely. At the moment there were more pressing issues. Like getting these bards on their side so they might use them in the battle for New Orleans that was imminently approaching. He was certain he could make use of them. He just needed to gauge their abilities and their loyalty. Although judging from the display nearly an hour ago, loyalty would not be hard to come by, if not to the family, at least, to Hope. These witches considered her a goddess. Now that was something that might prove very useful.

For a moment he felt a wave of guilt wash over him and he wondered what Haley would think of him if she knew he was, at the moment, trying to figure out how to manipulate the situation to his favor. He hated that his mind immediately jumped to 'how can I use this to my advantage?'.

But that had come from years of training, of years of ducking and running and staying off of Michael's radar.

Just as his thoughts strayed to her, Haley appeared from the living and snaked her arm around his shoulder, pressing herself into his back. Her warmth caused a chill to run the length of his body.

"So, How can we use these witches?" she asked, startling him with her ability to read his mind.

He turned to her with astonishment on his handsome, aristocratic features. "I'm not sure yet. We need to meet them properly first. I must confess that bards are not beings that are familiar to me, other than those from the classic tales. But then, I've never put much sway in the classic tales. Look at the mess Bram Stroker made."

"He only wrote what Klaus told him was true. You can't blame him for believing it all." She smiled at him.

"Nicklaus shared that with you?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

She laughed as she kissed him and he decided it was his favorite kind of kiss from her. Feeling the smile on her lips made it impossible for him not to join her. "No, I read your journals, too, remember?"

"About that," he began, bringing the mood into a much more serious place with just his tone. "Are you certain it was wise to give Hope all of the journals? I believe there are things in his past that Nicklaus would rather his daughter not know."

"Well, it's too late for him to make that decision. I did what I thought was best. I want her to know exactly who Klaus is. I want her to know exactly who we all are. I don't want her finding out something horrible and thinking we were hiding things from her on purpose."

"But you did hide things from her, like her magic ability." he countered.

She dropped her arms from around his neck and stepped away. "I did that to protect her."

"I'm simply asking if it might have been wiser to do the same thing with certain parts of our past as well. Maybe protecting her from some truths would have been better for her." He replied, wishing he had just kept his mouth shut as he could see the anger flashing in her eyes.

"Are you concerned that she might have read things about you that you aren't especially proud of? Is that what this is about?" Haley asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

Elijah let out a troubled sigh. "Perhaps that is what's bothering me. I understand your reasons for being honest with her and I agree with them. I know, however, that those journals don't just cast Nicklaus in a rather harsh light. I'm there on the pages with him, allowing things to happened that I wished I had stopped; Doing things that I wish I hadn't; Making decisions that I wish I had made differently."

"Those journals gave Hope the feeling of belonging to this family that she wouldn't have had without them. They connected her to her roots and to me that was the most important thing." She dropped her hands and shoved them into the back pockets of her jeans. "I haven't always felt like I belonged here. In the beginning, I wasn't sure I'd ever feel like part of all this. Your family, well actually, you and Rebekah, and those journals changed that for me. I was counting on them doing the same for Hope. It was also the reason that I made sure she was able to visit you when she was old enough. I want her to feel like a Mikaelson. I think that is what Klaus would want more than anything else."

He crossed to her in one stride and gathered her into his arms. Then he kissed her, desperately, passionately. When he pulled away he realized he was trembling.

She held his head in her hands and gazed into his eyes with a touch of concern in her own. "What is going on with you? What has you so worked up?"

He couldn't help the smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth. He realized that he didn't smile as often as he used to, unless she was around. "You," he answered with simple honesty. "Sometimes, I feel as if I somehow conjured you in my mind, created you especially for me."

She kissed him this time, it was a much softer, gentler kiss. And it worked to sooth the savage part of himself that he could barely contain when she was with him. "I love you, too." She answered. "So does Hope. Nothing she read in those books of yours has ever made either of us love you any less. Nothing will ever do that."

A knock at the door brought them both back to the matters at hand and Haley kissed him once more before returning to the living room.

Elijah straightened his shoulders, took a deep breath and opened the door.

The woman Ingrid stood in the doorway with an elderly man and woman on either side of her. The man, red-haired with a beard that almost hung to the ground and a halo of hair surrounding the dome of skin at the top of his head was stooped forward at such a severe angle he had to raise his head uncomfortably to look forward. In his hand was a carved, ebony raven head, the handle to his maple walking stick and a striking piece of art.

The woman was equally as aged, silvery hair that reminded him of spider webs hung nearly to her waist while deep creases covered the features of her face, neck and hands. Perhaps not as frail looking as her sister had appeared, there was still something fragile about her, breakable. Her hands shook with a visible tremor while her chapped lips did their best to offer him a smile in greeting.

"We have returned at the predetermined time. We seek an audience with The Morrigan." Ingrid announced. "We present ourselves with no ill will or malice of thought. Our hands are outstretched in friendship and peace."

Elijah held the door opened for them and the trio entered slowly. "The Morrigan will grant you audience. We welcome the Bardic Grove of Ravens into our home in friendship and peace."

It was all pomp and circumstance. Witches had been using the protocols for years. He was a touch surprised when Ingrid initiated such a formal greeting. For some reason he had gotten the impression that the three had been far removed from society. Their manner and dress suggested they came from a different time, an ancient time, one out of touch with today's society niceties. Maybe the rituals and formalities were far, far older than he imagined.

He lead the shuffling procession into the living room where Haley waited with Hope on the love seat and offered them each a seat. Instead of opting for individual chairs the trio sat side by side on the sofa.

Elijah took his place in the chair closest to Hope, leaving her sitting in the middle between himself and Haley. It was exactly where he wanted her to be as he sat back and eyed the newcomers critically.

He did his best to read each of them before realizing the one he could best read was Ingrid. It seemed the signs of aging had a way of masking the other two, making it difficult to read them at all.

He caught Haley's eye and gave her the subtlest of nods. She blinked at him in understanding and cleared her throat.

"I think before we get started, maybe you could help Collin and Bridget like you did Ingrid," Haley suggested to her daughter.

"I'm not sure how I did what I did." Hope answered self-consciously. "But I can try."

Elijah got to his feet and moved a good distance away before Hope made her way around the coffee table. She perched on the edge of it and took hold of Collin's hand. Once again the light consumed them both and when it receded, the young man at the prime of his life sat in his place. With a full head of red curls and a beard to match, he straightened his back and raised his eyes to Hope's.

"Praise be to Dagda. The Morrigan has returned," he said in an awe-struck whisper.

Hope repeated the move with Bridget, taking her hand and allowing the light to consume them both. Bridget's younger self appeared to be the mirror image of Ingrid and as Elijah returned his eyes to Collin, he realized they were triplets. Collin's features were merely more masculine, but the resemblance was uncanny.

As he moved back to his chair, he noted more things as Haley and Hope carried on the conversation with the trio. First, Collin was not a witch, not from birth anyway. He reeked of the smell of wilderness and sunshine that he associated with Haley. He was a wolf. His sister, Bridget was most certainly a vampire.

"Excuse me, I'm sorry to interrupt." He said, sitting up straighter as a theory began to form in his mind. "But the three of you, what is your connection to The Morrigan?"

All eyes turned to him, but when she spoke, Ingrid directed her words towards Hope. "We were once known as The Morrigan as well. Centuries ago before age began to weaken our power."

"But you are a vampire, age should have no effect on you." Elijah commented to Bridget.

"As time took it's toil on my siblings, through our magical link it took its toil on me. My soul is linked to theirs, therefore I age just as they do." Bridget explained.

"Fascinating," he replied in a hushed whisper. "And is this how this normally works? The Morrigan is born of three people that are bond together?"

"We are the third incarnation of the Morrigan. And there have been none born since. We believed we were the last." Collin said.

"Have there been other incarnations born like Hope, all three in one person?" Haley asked, curiously.

Ingrid shook her head. "Never. First it was three sisters. After that it was another set of triplet like us."

"What happened to them, if you don't mind me asking?" Hope said joining the conversation.

"They are now long gone from this plane. We feared we would soon join them. Our time was running out when we heard stories of the Triple Goddess born of one flesh."

"And what exactly do bards do? I've read books about them, but I've never actually met one." Hope asked, leaning in as if the three on the couch had her completely enthralled.

"We record history." Bridget said.

"We watch and observe from the sidelines and offer an unbiased view of the important events in the history of man." Collin answered at the same time.

"But magic, how does your magic work? I know you have some. I saw you use it. Is it Earth magic, energy magic? Do you work with outside objects like in ritual magic, or does it all come from inside of you? I've met some Shamans that use the energy force of animals when they practice. I've even met some Eastern practitioners who channel the life force of the people around them. And in New Orleans they used a combination of different types of magic; ritual, Earth and energy as well as channeling the spirits of their ancestors. How do you do what you do? Where does your magic come from?" Hope was babbling with excitement and it looked as if Haley were about to try to calm her, but a look from Elijah stayed her hand.

He wanted to see how the bards reacted to the young witch's enthusiasm. And he definitely wanted to know the answer to her question. Knowing where their magic came from could tell them everything they needed to know about what they were capable of achieving.

"We use the harmonies of our voices to manipulate our surroundings. It isn't the strongest magic in the world, but it has served as our protection for many, many years." Bridget answered.

"So it's defensive magic, more illusion than anything else?" Elijah offered.

"No, there is no illusion. When we conjure the fog, it is fog, not a perception of those around us. The fog we call is very real. And while yes, it is mostly defensive, a smart witch learns how to use those tools to her best advantage." Ingrid said, sagely.

Freya entered the room from the kitchen where she, Kol and Rebekah had been listening intently to the conversation.

She nodded her head as she stepped up behind the couch. "We can most definitely use that."

"I'm sorry," Collin leaned around to take in the newcomer. "Use that for what?"

"We need your help to free my father from the New Orleans witches that are holding him."

The three on the couch looked back and forth between themselves for a time. It appeared as if they were having a silent conversation amongst themselves.

Finally Ingrid turned her attention back to Hope and nodded. "This is the least we can do for the gift of life you have bestowed upon us. You may consider us your allies."

Hope returned her nod with a bow of her own head. "We accept your friendship and in return give the friendship of the Morrigan as well as the Mikaelson family. May we all prosper in our new alliance."

Elijah watched his niece is stunned silence at her poise and grace. For such a young girl she was already a diplomat in her own right. Perhaps his worries about her were unfounded. Perhaps she was indeed old enough to endue and prosper even under her trying circumstances.

There was no doubt that Hope was far from an ordinary eleven year old girl. As he watched her interact with their newly minted allies, he saw the makings of a ruler, a leader, maybe even a queen.

It was much later that night as they lay tangled up in each other once again in Haley's bed when she raised her head from his bare chest and smiled. "I think Hope is going to be alright. She handled herself so well this afternoon. I've never been more proud of her."

"She is not just going to be alright." He said sliding his fingers idly through her chestnut hair. "I believe one day, she will be the leader that brings the Quarter back together as it should be."


	14. Chapter 14

Haley paced the expansive space of the kitchen for what had to be the millionth time. Today was the day. Today they would fire their first shots across the bow of the New Orleans power base. Today they could very easily start a war and show their entire hand at the same time.

She sighed tiredly as she poured herself a third cup of coffee. Today it would all start again, the worry, the drama, the death. She'd lost more people she cared about in New Orleans than she'd lost anywhere else. And while she knew she'd gained so much there, it didn't make the loses hurt any less. Jackson, Cammy, Davina, the list went on and on. Faces of those she'd lost swam in her mind. She wasn't entirely sure she was ready to rejoin the fight. She'd grown accustomed to safety and security and those were things she'd never known in New Orleans. Her life had been a constant struggle from the moment she was dragged into the battle that waged in the Big Easy between the supernatural elements. Nothing there had ever been easy for her.

Nothing except falling in love with Elijah. If she was honest with herself, she could admit that she'd been in love with him from the moment she read his journals. Circumstances had kept them apart for so long, now that they were finally free, unencumbered and together she didn't want anything to mess that up. She'd waited too long, suffered through too many nights. This was their time and she had no intention of letting anything or anyone take him away from her.

She glanced out the window and saw the very first lightness of dawn filling the sky. She'd been up for hours, too anxious to sleep. After finishing off her coffee, she decided to head back up stairs and take advantage of the sleeping household. It was a rare thing in her world.

She eased the door open, slipped inside and carefully locked it behind her.

"I was wondering if you were coming back to bed," Elijah's gruff, sleep-laden voice said in the darkness.

Haley made her way to him, slipped off the nightshirt she'd covered herself with and slid into the bed beside him. "I couldn't sleep."

He pulled her in close and placed a soft kiss on her forehead. "You should have woken me."

"Why? You were sleeping."

"I can feel the tension in your shoulders. Are you worried about today?" His hand had moved to her shoulder and his fingers were gently massaging the tender flesh.

She thought about that question for a moment before answering. "I'm worried about the plan. I have every confidence that we'll pull it off without any problems."

He kissed her bare shoulder. "What then?"

"I guess I'm worried about what this means. We're starting something today. This plan will start a war." she replied, tentatively.

Elijah shifted, moving so that his face was just inches away from hers. "We aren't trying to start a war. We just want our family back together."

"I know that. And I want Klaus back just as badly as everyone else. I just don't want to lose anyone. I guess I've gotten soft." She smiled.

He pulled her in tighter and smiled back at her. "You have always been soft on the inside. Despite everything that's happened, despite everything we've endured, everything we've seen and done, you have always remained soft at your core, where it matters. No matter how hard you try to hide it. It's one of the reasons I love you. Whatever happens today we will get through it."

She gave a troubled sigh. "I'm not sure I'm ready to go back to getting through life. I've enjoyed actually living it these past few years. I've enjoyed not looking over my shoulder constantly, not walking around on eggshells waiting for the next big shoe to drop on our heads. The quietness of living on the outside is nice."

"Of course it is. But you can't tell me that at least some small part of you doesn't miss the action and excitement of being a Mikaelson in New Orleans."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Maybe a small part of me. But there is no part, not even a small one that misses Hope being in danger. Every minute we spent in New Orleans when she was a baby felt like borrowed time. I felt like she could be ripped away from me any second, or I could be ripped away from her. Here, I know she's safe. There, I could never be certain."

"Going back to New Orleans will be hard. And I understand your desire to keep Hope safe. But she is not a helpless baby this time. I'm not sure she was ever helpless. And she is coming equipped with her own group of magically adapt followers who would never let anything happen to her. Hope will be fine, as will everyone else." He assured her.

"She'll be fine today, it's what happens after today that has me worried."

He studied her face for a moment before reaching up and moving his fingertip over the lines her frown had formed. "If it would make you feel better, we can leave Hope and her groupies behind today."

"First off, no you can't. Even if you wanted to leave her behind, there is zero chance of her staying behind." Haley told him. "Second, like I said, it's not today that worries me. Today will be easy. It's what today means that has me worried. And I'm not really worried. I'm just not sure I'm ready to start fighting for my life and my family everyday again. Our life in New Orleans was never easy."

"You would rather stay here with your adopted wolf pack and not go back to New Orleans?"

"No, New Orleans is my home. It's our home." She looked away from his intense stare and found a place over his shoulder to rest her gaze. "I'm afraid of going back to being afraid all the time. I'm afraid for Hope being caught up in the middle of all this. She's still so young. I'm afraid of losing anyone else I care about. I don't want to go through that again. Most of all, I'm afraid of losing you. New Orleans hasn't been kind to us. It seems like there is always something there keeping us apart."

He kissed her, deeply, yet with a tenderness that almost overwhelmed her. "You are not going to lose me. Not ever. I'm not going anywhere. I'm done sacrificing my happiness for everyone else. You and Hope are my first priorities and I'll do whatever I have to do to keep you with me."

Haley drew herself even further into his arms and kissed him again. He kissed her back, using his passion to quell her fears and she let him. She let him tell her without words how much she meant to him. In returned, she used her own silent language to tell him how much she needed him.

It was several hours later, standing in an empty field of dried grass and fallen leaves that she recalled how she'd felt in those moments wrapped up in the safety and warmth of his arms. It helped fight off the chill in the crisp fall air as she shifted from one foot to the other and pulled her over-sized, handkerchief hemmed, oatmeal cardigan closer together. She brushed a strand of hair from her face, fighting against a gust of wide that was sending her brunette locks flying in all directions.

"The bards have started humming. The protective shield should be down any minute now." Freya told her though the words were only in her mind. It was a spell Freya had been working on and it seemed to be functioning effectively.

Haley felt her stomach tighten as she watch Elijah and Kol move in closer to the boundary of the shield.

The shield was the first thing they encountered upon returning to their home town. A shield especially designed to keep out those of Mikaelson blood. It meant that Vincent and his witches knew they were coming, or at least he anticipated the move beforehand. Either way, he was prepared for their invasion and that didn't bode well for them. Haley had almost called the whole operation off when Elijah and Rebekah had announced their inability to get past the barrier.

Freya had been the one to talk her down, assuring her that Vincent would have no idea what they were after and once they had what they needed they would be in and out of New Orleans before the witches could even think about a counter move.

Haley knew she was right. There plan today was simple and relatively non-invasive. They would be fine. It was tomorrow that had her tied up in knots. It was the witches' response that had her worried for everyone she loved.

The moment she saw Elijah step across the invisible line of the boundary, she started to move forward, holding her position and keeping to the plan. It was a rule they had all learned many times over, always, always follow the plan.

Ducking between trees and behind bushes, doing their best to keep themselves out of sight, the group of them moved forward. It was a slow steady pace. Only Kol had broken rank and sprinted away, taking off at vampire speed to scout the territory ahead.

He returned before they made it very far.

"He's at Marcellus' place on this side of the river. And as luck would have it, it seems he's alone." Kol announced the good news.

With a nod between them, they all took off at supernatural speed towards Marcel's loft.

Kol had been right. Haley eased up the stairs while Rebekah and Kol climbed up to the roof and covered the windows. She could feel Elijah at her back and his presence reassured her, though to be honest she didn't believe there was any real danger in the situation before them.

Josh was standing at the window, tumbler of scotch in his hand, looking older than he had ever looked before. Despite his lack of aging, there was something more that said he'd done a lot of growing up in the ten years since Haley had last seen him. His years looked darker, wiser, less bright-eyed and naive.

She stepped off the last step and into the loft just as Rebekah was easing herself down in front of the window he was peering out of.

He shirked like a girl when he saw her and nearly dropped his glass on the hardwood floors under his feet. When he turned from the window to run in the opposite direction, Haley and Elijah blocked his exit, preventing him from escaping.

"What do you want?!" He demanded after a hard swallow to calm his nerves. "I have no idea where Klaus is. I haven't seen or heard a word about him in years. He's just gone."

"We don't want to hurt you, Josh." Haley said first to reassure him that he wasn't in danger.

"Then why are you here? Just talking to you is enough to get me hurt right now. And pardon me if I don't believe you considering the company you're keeping." His eyes narrowed as they turned on Elijah.

"We need you to come with us. We have some questions and we need answers." Elijah said.

"You want me to come with you?" Josh asked, pointing at his chest. "This is a joke, right? I'm being punked or tested or something. You can't possibly think I'd be willing to go anywhere with you, especially not you."

Rebekah and Kol had made their entry through the balcony doors and where now closing in behind the young vampire. "This isn't a joke. Just come with us. Don't make this a huge thing. We aren't trying to hurt you. We just want a conversation and we can't stay here to have it." Haley continued as she stepped closer and closer to him. Now he had either an original or a hybrid on all four sides of him. He turned his head is a circle, trying to device an escape route.

For some reason, he decided to go through Kol. The siblings had him before he managed to take more than two steps in Kol's direction. Rebekah produced a needle from her pocket and injected Josh with it while Elijah and Kol held him tightly in their grasp.

They continue to hold him until he slummed down between them. Then Kol lifted him deftly to his shoulder and took off without a word.

"See you at home," Rebekah sang out before dashing away as well.

Elijah gave Haley a quizzical look when she didn't immediately take off as well.

"What is it?" he asked, coming to her and taking her hand as he urged her towards the stairs.

"Marcel doesn't live here," she said, quietly, more to herself than in answer.

"How do you know?" Elijah asked as he spun back around and scanned the loft quickly.

"The place doesn't smell like him anymore, not even a hint of him. Not only doesn't he live here, he hasn't in a really long time." she said.

"We'll find out what's going on when we get home and talk to Josh," Elijah told her.

"We just kidnapped, Josh. Tell me how this isn't us playing the bad guys again." She asked.

Elijah stopped for a moment. "We aren't going to hurt him." he answered lamely.

"So that makes it okay?"

"Haley, My Love, do you really feel like this is the best place to have a moral discussion about our plan? We could be found any minute. I'd rather rescue Nicklaus, not join him."

She nodded and followed him quickly down the stairs.


End file.
